Sezione FILOSOFIA
Dino Formaggio (1914-2008) was for many decades Professor of Aesthetics at the Universities of Padua and Milan Università Statale). He was one of the leading contemporary scholars of Aesthetics and a colleague of Mikel Dufrenne (1910-1995; University of Paris X Nanterre) with whom he collaborated on numerous research projects and publications, including the fundamental Trattato di Estetica (Milano, Mondadori, 1981, 2 vols). Formaggio’s research – which innovated the aesthetic thought still often tied to the idealistic tradition of Croce’s philosophy without appearing to be so – is also collected in other volumes such as Fenomenologia della tecnica artistica (Milano, Nuvoletti, 1953), Arte (Milano, Isedi, 1973) and Problemi di Estetica (Sesto San Giovanni-Milano, Aesthetica, 2002). In today’s Italy, Formaggio’s works are less (or no longer) read and studied. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Filosofia section is devoted to him. Filosofia offers scholars a significant selection of Formaggio’s scattered pages: the important essays Forma, paradigma, trans-morfosi (1987) and Raffaello (1959): enlightening pages, in which He reflects on the concepts of Form and the continual Becoming of artistic forms, Body, Mind, Reason and Intuition, on their relations and formal implications for the artistic creation.
Sezione POESIA
Nikolaj S. Gumilëv (1886-1921) was a famous Russian poet, prose writer and critic. Indeed, he can be defined one of the most prominent European poets of the early 20th century. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Poesia section is devoted to him. Poesia (edited by Amedeo Anelli) is divided into two parts. The first offers scholars a significant choice of Gumilëv’s poems: verses which have never before been published in Italy and deal with the Great War, love, Russian traditions, travels to Africa, faith etc. The second part consists of a fundamental essay (for the first time translated into Italian: L’eredità del Simbolismo e l’Acmeismo) in which Gumilëv criticises Symbolism and its formal shortcomings in the light of the cultural developments of 20th century Modernity.
Sezione LETTERATURA E GIORNALISMO
Albert Camus (1913-1960) was one of most prominent French writers, essayists, playwrights and journalists of the early 20th century. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Letteratura e Giornalismo section is devoted to him. Letteratura e Giornalismo is divided into two parts.
The first offers scholars a significant essay by Sara Calderoni, Il giornalismo critico di Albert Camus, in which she questions what kind of journalism is ideal for Camus. To illuminate this side, covered by a persistent shadow, of a great author known worldly for his novels, it is necessary to say that Camus thought of a journalism made of a free, political because “apolitical”, – independent from political currents –, critical approach to reality, or rather, to the “mountain” of news whose reality is, only apparently, the banal, consequential summary. The true way of understanding Camus as a journalist, who uses to comment on facts and news without describing them banally, is represented by a real, deep comprehension for the values of humanity: a secular pity or charity for human suffering and, in general, for the trampled feelings of suffering people, to whom he wants to give justice in his prose.
The second part consists of a selection of original, important journalistic writings by Camus, which are very difficult to find (not only in Italy). These include some articles on Europe and democracy that are still illuminating today.
***************
Kamen’, XXVII, 53 – Giugno 2018
Sezione FILOSOFIA
Angelo Genovesi (1958-1959), philosopher of science and university teacher at the IULM of Milan and at the Urbaniana of Rome, was one of the most brilliant Italian scholars of the thought of Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Filosofia section is devoted to him. This section is divided into two parts. In the first, Filosofia offers scholars two rare and fundamental essays. The first one is Henri Bergson e «Le Rire» in which Genovesi analyses the historical importance and fortune of a very famous, and very short, Bergson’s writing: Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique (1900). The scholar focuses not only on its structure, but also the way in which Bergson decides, – through a deep philosophical reflection –, to build and present his effort related to the categories of Laughter. In reality, the article aims to clarify a particular moment in Bergson’s thought, or rather in Bergson’s construction of his own philosophical method: Le Rire represents the crucial transition between psychology and metaphysic as a positive science.
In the second essay Libertà, natura e cultura nel pensiero di Albert Einstein, Genovesi wonders about the heart of Einstein’s complex thought; about the relationship between the inner and outer idea of freedom according to him. For Einstein, it is impossible to believe in a culture of freedom without tolerance for others, but this rise to tolerance stems from a meditated freedom of culture. Einstein theorises a difficult labyrinth of correspondences to read the whole of human freedom as a balance between the social and the individual sense of being in the world.
The second part of the Filosofia section is devoted to Paolo Bussotti’s essay In ricordo di Angelo Genovesi. The article develops a critical profile of Angelo Genovesi, recently dead, summarizing his interest for science and philosophy, for Einstein and Bergson, for physics and psychology. After analysing parts of his research nearest to his scientific interests, the author recalls the essay devoted to sense of permanence of time in the inner memory and simultaneity in both Bergson and Einstein, in particular the influence of Einstein, discoverer of Relativity, on the ideas of the most important theorist of the Time problem in the first part of 20th century, Bergson, who writes beautiful pages, despite Relativity theory, on uniformity of the substance of Time for all manifestations of Being.
Sezione POESIA
Lidija Vukčević (1954), for several years teacher of Croatian language at the Universities of Lausanne and Milan (Statale), is a poet and essayist born in Zagreb to a family of Montenegrin origin. She is one of the most prominent European poets today. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Poesia section is devoted to her. Poesia (edited by Milica Marinković) offers scholars a significant choice of Vukčević’s poems: verses which have never before been translated in Italy and deal with “ars poetica”, love and religious topics, incommunicability, the eradication of human being etc.
Sezione LETTERATURA E GIORNALISMO
Vladimir V. Majakovskij (1893-1930) was notoriously one of the greatest Russian poets, essayists and journalists of the early 20th century. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Letteratura e Giornalismo section is devoted to him. Letteratura e Giornalismo is divided into two parts.
The first offers scholars a relevant essay by Amedeo Anelli, Majakovskij il giornalismo e altro, in which he focuses on the tactics and methods of Majakovskij’s argumentative, journalistic prose. On the one hand, the Russian author uses them against the old system of representing and thinking about life and, in particular, the written reflection of life in a system of words. On the other hand, the great poet does not give up inventing an original style, in which the substance of social-anarchist thought can find its perfect formal expression, the true, profound revolution using many different cultural and philosophical influences with a creative and deforming intention. Hyperbolic language, rich in metaphors, corrosive irony, the stratification of words are the elements to communicate with people and to convince everyone of the power of the Socialist revolution to rebuild the hated, trivial, ordinary reality.
The second part consists of a selection of important newspaper articles by Majakovskij, that have never before been translated into Italian. In particular, these include writings on poetry, its style and language that should be simple and clear, comprehensible to all.
***************
Kamen’, XXVIII, 54 – Gennaio 2019
Sezione GIUSEPPE BARETTI
Giuseppe Baretti (1719-1789) was one of the most original Italian writers, and also a lexicographer and lexicologist, a playwright, etc. He is unanimously considered the father of modern militant criticism. Since the MiC established a National Committee for the Tricentenary celebrations of Baretti’s birth, Kamen’ joined it and began to devote special sections to the Piedmontese author. In this issue the Giuseppe Baretti section offers scholars a selection of pages from La Frusta Letteraria (1763-1765) and Francesca Savoia’s critical essay Lo snodo della «Frusta Letteraria», in which the amazing and wanderer of Baretti’s life is retraced with a great abundance of biographical details. Savoia’s critical approach aims to undertake a literary “journey” in the European culture of 18th century, by highlighting the difficulties, misunderstandings, persecutions and errors of the public and individual perception of a profound intellectual commitment: «La Frusta Letteraria» represents a point of convergence of the different cultural trends of a century torn by the struggle between a certain intellectual freedom, greater than in the past, and the ancient, seemingly always persistent, censorial repression, from which a volcanic writer like Giuseppe Baretti had to defend himself.
Sezione POESIA
Marco Beck (1949), is one of today’s most important Italian religious poets. He lives secluded and focused on his own formal research, but his poems deserve to be read and studied more. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Poesia section is devoted to him. Poesia is divided into two parts. The first offers scholars a significant selection of poems and long poems never before published by Beck. The second one consists of Daniela Marcheschi’s essay «Come da una folgore raggiunto»: la poesia di Marco Beck, which deals with Beck’s simple and clear poetic argumentation, his poetical intent to evoke and arouse, through classical religious situations (Christmas, Easter, Passion of Christ and his Resurrection), a strong emotional participation similar to that of the ancient tradition of sacred representations, and close to its fortune in the greatest 20th poetry (for example, that of Giuseppe Ungaretti and T. S. Eliot).
Sezione LETTERATURA E GIORNALISMO
Guido Morselli (1912-1973) was one of the most prominent Italian writers, essayists and cultural journalists. Despite Morselli’s importance for the 20th-century Italian and European literature (just see José Saramago’s historical divertissements), his innovative novels were only published after his tragic suicide and are still not adequately read and studied by critics. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Letteratura e Giornalismo section is devoted to him. The first part of this section offers scholars a significant choice of Morselli’s newspaper articles published during his lifetime, right from his university days: texts which have never before been collected and that mainly concern the 20th-century novel, its formal characters, structures, styles etc.
The second part consists of Valentina Fortichiari’s essay Guido Morselli giornalista. Morselli’s leading scholar analyses various research themes of his journalistic and critic production, in which, in particular, on the one hand there is a strong love for literary criticism and reflection on his work as a novelist; on the other hand, there are other crucial themes, such as the early ecological battle and the problematic questioning of a contemporary society dominated and transformed for the worse by the pervasive “idle chatter” of an increasingly superficial public opinion.
***************
Kamen’, XXVIII, 55 – Giugno 2019
Sezione GIUSEPPE BARETTI
Giuseppe Baretti (1719-1789) was one of the most original Italian writers, and also a lexicographer and lexicologist, a playwright, etc. He is unanimously considered the father of modern militant criticism. Since the MiC established a National Committee for the Tricentenary celebrations of Baretti’s birth, Kamen’ joined it and began to devote special sections to the Piedmontese author. In this issue the Giuseppe Baretti section offers scholars many selected pages (Scritti di e sul viaggio – Parte I) from the Lettere familiari di Giuseppe Baretti a’ suoi tre fratelli Filippo, Giovanni e Amedeo (1762-1763) and the first part of Elvio Guagnini’s critical essay Baretti e le scritture di viaggio. This article aims to understand Giuseppe Baretti as a traveller, or rather, a writer who loved to write about his journeys in a society characterized by the tradition of the Grand Tour. The scholar explores the complex and plural dimension of Baretti’s memoires, analysing the social and historical context in which Baretti wrote the Lettere familiari later transformed into his Journey London to Genoa, trough England, Portugal, Spain and France (1770). Irony and parody were used by Baretti to reinvent a literary genre, based on his knowledge of it, but also to deform it, emphasising its abundance of heteroclite details (see also Kamen’, XXXVIII, 56– Gennaio 2020).
Sezione POESIA
Nikolaj S. Gumilëv (1886-1921) was a famous Russian poet, prose writer and critic. Indeed, he can be defined one of the most prominent European poets of the early 20th century. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Poesia section is devoted to him. Poesia (edited by Amedeo Anelli) offers scholars a significant choice of Gumilëv’s poems: verses which have never before been translated in Italy and deal with a variety of topics such as death, Art, memory, and the farewell to life (before being shot).
Sezione LETTERATURA E GIORNALISMO
Cesare Zavattini (1902-1989) was an Italian writer, journalist, painter, screenwriter, poet etc., and famous as one of the leading exponents of the Neorealist movement in Italian cinema. However, Zavattini was also one of the greatest modern interpreters of the international and vital humorous tradition and, in particular, of comic-humorous journalism, that is, of humorous literature published in newspapers or periodicals in the first half of the 20th century. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Letteratura e Giornalismo section (that is divided into two parts) is devoted to him. In the first part Guido Conti’s essay, Cesare Zavattini: un genio tra giornalismo, letteratura e cinema, a trenta anni dalla morte, aims to paint a complete profile of a crucial intellectual of the Italian 20th century cultural story, despite the critical shadow zone in which the author is nowadays confined. Starting from the idea of Zavattini that nothing can be called trivial in our world, Conti explains how and why cinema, journalism and, obviously, literature are equal manifestations of rediscovering reality, the amazing and emotional nature of everything, an always active way of being in the world, as well as a way to express creativity and originality of thought. The second part of the Letteratura e Giornalismo section is devoted to a choice of very rare texts by Zavattini, in which his ironic vein, that often flows into the paradoxical and surreal, stands out for the remarkable formal invention.
***************
Kamen’, XXIX, 56 – Gennaio 2020
Sezione GIUSEPPE BARETTI
Giuseppe Baretti (1719-1789) was one of the most original Italian writers, and also a lexicographer and lexicologist, a playwright, etc. He is unanimously considered the father of modern militant criticism. Since the MiC established a National Committee for the Tricentenary celebrations of Baretti’s birth, Kamen’ joined it and began to devote special sections to the Piedmontese author; but in extraordinary way this issue is entirely dedicated to Baretti, in order to publish: A) selected pages from his Lettere familiari (Scritti di e sul viaggio – Parte II: see Kamen’, XXXVIII, 55 – Giugno 2019) and Piacevoli poesie (1750, 1764), rich in humour and ironic characterisations (e.g. the verses on Vettori’s nose); B) the first part of the proceedings of the conference Giuseppe Baretti: an Italian Mind, a European Writer, organised on 4 December 2019 at the University of Utrecht, on the initiative of Gandolfo Cascio and Daniela Marcheschi. Onno Kosters’ article, “Perhaps the less we quarrel, the more we hate”: Joseph Baretti’s Second Sojourn in Britain (1766-1789), deals with the second English sojourn that was also the last of Baretti until his death in London on the eve of the French Revolution. Baretti was an important mediator of Italian culture, but the Dutch scholar’s true objective is not a trivial list of years, facts that happened to the author from Turin, with a description of some special moments or events of his biography. This critical and historical portrait of Baretti reveals a European writer, with a cosmopolitan sense of literature and criticism that makes him an outsider, a contemporary of the future. Raniero Speelman’s article, Baretti, primo critico europeo: note di lettura alla «Frusta» ed altri testi, focuses on the fact that the life and production of Baretti’s «Frusta Letteraria» is to be considered as a contemporary treasure for our knowledge of the true values of literature. Why is it important to read an anthology of Baretti’s writings today? The scholar emphasises that there are many texts about writers and literary disputes of which, today, we have almost no memory, but, despite this difficulty, we can rediscover an incredible freshness, a wealth of humour and vis comica which correspond, at the same time, to a volcanic open-mindedness that prefers the universal and interdisciplinary plots built between ancient and modern literatures.
***************
Kamen’, XXIX-XXX, 57-58 – Giugno 2020-Gennaio 2021
Sezione GIUSEPPE BARETTI
Giuseppe Baretti (1719-1789) was one of the most original Italian writers, and also a lexicographer and lexicologist, a playwright, etc. He is unanimously considered the father of modern militant criticism. Since the MiC established a National Committee for the Tricentenary celebrations of Baretti’s birth, Kamen’ joined it and published the proceedings of the conference Giuseppe Baretti: an Italian Mind, a European Writer, organised on 4 December 2019 at the University of Utrecht, on the initiative of Gandolfo Cascio and Daniela Marcheschin. The first part of the speeches at the Dutch conference was published in the issue 56 – Gennaio 2020 of Kamen’; in this one we publish the second and last part of them. The Giuseppe Baretti section is edited by Amedeo Anelli. In the opening article, Baretti intellettuale europeo, Amedeo Anelli explains how and why Baretti should be considered a contemporary European intellectual. In particular, thanks to Baretti’s literary experience, the contemporary reader can better understand the complex problems generated in the modern culture by the close relationship between Literature and Journalism; and the equally complex role of Ethics in the practice of literature and especially of criticism.
In her essay, Giuseppe Baretti: un classico come prisma per rileggere la letteratura, Daniela Marcheschi identifies some sources in the works of Baretti and deals with this figure: an intellectual able to summarize a certain idea of Europe through a rich and multifaceted literary activity. Baretti decided to recreate reality in his pages, to think of the contemporary world through the instrument of a “unified” literature, in which journalism, memories, militant criticism were linked to an important project: the vital design of understanding and illustrating the true value of Italian literature, so mistreated in England during his stay in London.
In his essay, «More virility of Thought and Vigour of Stile than any other Poem ancient or modern»: Baretti patrono di Dante, Gandolfo Cascio analyses a particular critical experience of Dante’s fortune: Giuseppe Baretti considered as a profound reader of the great poet. The scholar underlines the violent critic to Italian language by Voltaire: a too fragile idiom for philosophical argumentations and delicate for any excess (while he pursued the absolute prominence of French). Baretti used Dante to demonstrate Voltaire’s errors, and overall to show, with an incredibly brilliant style, the historical, social and human nature of Dante’s linguistic expressionism as a complex, valuable system of thought.
Sezione POESIA
Miklavž Komelj (1973), is a polyglot poet and essayist born in Ljubljana. He is one of the most prominent Slovenian poets today. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Poesia section is devoted to him. Poesia offers scholars a significant selection of Komelj’s poetry: poems which have never before been translated into Italian and deal with mythical and religious themes still alive in the issues of the contemporary world.
Sezione UMORISMO
Kamen’ joined the international research project Studies on Humour, since its foundation in 2008 on the initiative of Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi and the universities of Madeira, Nottingham and Ca’ Foscari. For this reason Kamen’ continuously devoted a specific section to essays, treatises, on humour in each issue from 35 – June 2009 until 44 – January 2014. This special Umorismo section is devoted to the eminent writer, essayist and critic Roberto Barbolini (1952), who is considered the leading exponent of humorous literature today in Italy. The section offers scholars some brilliant short texts by him, including a lively portrait of the publisher and writer Angelo Fortunato Formiggini (1878-1938).
***************
Kamen’, XXX, 59 – Giugno 2021
Sezione FILOSOFIA
Dino Formaggio (1914-2008) was for many decades Professor of Aesthetics at the Universities of Padua and Milan Università Statale). He was one of the leading contemporary scholars of Aesthetics and a colleague of Mikel Dufrenne (1910-1995; University of Paris X Nanterre) with whom he collaborated on numerous research projects and publications, including the fundamental Trattato di Estetica (Milano, Mondadori, 1981, 2 vols). Formaggio’s research – which innovated the aesthetic thought still often tied to the idealistic tradition of Croce’s philosophy without appearing to be so – is also collected in other volumes such as Fenomenologia della tecnica artistica (Milano, Nuvoletti, 1953), Arte (Milano, Isedi, 1973) etc. In today’s Italy, Formaggio’s works are less (or no longer) read and studied. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Filosofia section is devoted to him. Filosofia offers scholars a meaningful selection of Formaggio’s scattered pages: the important essays Fondamenti e valori dell’Arte in Lucian Blaga (1953) and Mikel vivant (1995). In these enlightening texts he reflects on Blaga’s concept of Art dealing with the figurative genesis and culture as a style and shows the reasons for the vitality of the profound aesthetic thought of Dufrenne.
Sezione POESIA
Guido Oldani (1947), is one of the most prominent Italian poets today. He is also the founder of the literary movement called Realismo Terminale (Terminal Realism). Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Poesia section is devoted to him. The first part of the section offers scholars a significant selection of Oldani’s unpublished poems: the short poetic collection Uomo in scatola, that deals with a variety of topics related to the ethical and cultural devastation of contemporary society.
The second part consists of two critical essays on his poetry. In the first, Amedeo Anelli’s article (Guido Oldani e l’uomo in scatola) deals with Oldani’s poetry able to describe the western historical challenge involving the poet, who considers himself as a worker in the field of words, and the idea of poetic word as a separated possibility of life. Our society destroys and, in reality, has just destroyed the power of words by turning them in a dead ocean of stupid gossips: the poet has to explore, against this state of things, new ways to save the spiritual and human greatness of lyrical word in all its pregnant aspects. In the second essay (Agganciando il cielo), Roberto Vignolo highlights the religious inspiration that characterizes the entire poetry of Oldani: a Christian flâneur walking and meditating on daily life and the stolid forms of its trivialization. The tension towards the spiritual mystery of reality, the Sacred, leads him to an ironic and ethically centred look towards the world today. The poet’s thirst for Justice is transformed into poems of rare satirical force in their brevity and musical compactness, but also into a modern Via crucis, in which poetry begins and becomes the palpitating “flesh” of every man, of every animated part of universe.
Sezione UMORISMO
Kamen’ joined the international research project Studies on Humour, since its foundation in 2008 on the initiative of Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi and the universities of Madeira, Nottingham and Ca’ Foscari. For this reason Kamen’ continuously devoted a specific section to essays, treatises, on humour in each issue from 35 – June 2009 until 44 – January 2014. This special Umorismo section is devoted to the Italian humorous journal Bertoldo (1936-1943) and in particular to Guido Conti’s essay L’umorismo surreale del «Bertoldo» 1936-1943, fra tradizione e avanguardia europea. The author highlights the relationships of this humorous journal (published by Angelo Rizzoli) with the major European figurative culture of the time, in particular with the international avant-gardes of the early Twentieth century, such as Surrealism and Dadaism. However, Conti also reaffirms the close link of the directors and collaborators of the «Bertoldo» (Giovanni Mosca, Vittorio Metz, Giovannino Guareschi, etc.) with the great tradition of Italian humour.
***************
Kamen’, XXXI, 60 – Gennaio 2022
Sezione SOFIA GAVRIILIDIS
Sofia Gavriilidis (1960-2020) was one of the most prominent Greek writers and scholars of Children’s literature. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, a section is devoted to her and to her brilliant article Le trasformazioni del naso come fonte d’umorismo nella Letteratura per l’infanzia. This writing deals with the singular story of a strange literary element, well known in the genre of humour literature: the satire of a large or enormous nose, examples of which can be found in great works of literature. Most of these satirical situations concern picture books, in which the verbal aspect is linked to the iconographic one. The author points out that the more the writer tries to modify a nose in a ridiculous way, the more he or she wants to write a hidden satire of reality, of society through the “veil” of an ironic deformation, such as a nose bigger than normal. Daniela Marcheschi’s article Ricordo di Sofia Gavriilidis aims to give a critical “picture” of Gavriilidis’ innovative work. Her essays on children’s literature concern the different types of hero in this genre, the strategies of the titles, of the rhetorical ways of presenting a book from the title, the social contexts in which children’s and youth books are created and translated. The role of the publisher is one of the most important points of his reflection on the relationship between children and ideologies, on the trends of thought on the readings intended for them.
Sezione POESIA
Elio Pecora (1936) is a well known poet, prose writer, critic and journalist. He is one of the most prominent Italian poets of today. Therefore, the Poesia section is devoted to him in this issue of Kamen’. Poesia offers scholars the significant Pecora’s short poetic collection Accordature. These verses, never published before, are characterized by a clear language and a rare musicality and deal with private or otherwise autobiographical memories, everyday life at home, “ars poetica” etc.
Sezione GIOVANNI SIAS
Giovanni Sias (1952-2020) was one of the most authoritative Italian psychoanalysts, whose thought had, and still has, an important echo abroad. The originality of his thought consists in the way in which he related to the living knowledge of literature, following but also expanding the way opened, in his time, by Freud. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, a section is devoted to Sias and his brilliant Inventario di Psicoanalisi. “Prima conversazione”. Sias aimed to give a sort of ideal “introduction” to Psychoanalysis, to its history and its themes, in particular the problem of the true “nature” of a psychoanalyst. Is he a doctor as the others or not? In fact, the author, using the case of Freud who won a major literary prize but not the Nobel hoped by his friends for his medical discoveries, describes a psychoanalyst’s attempt to seek a way to escape the overly rigid condition of clinical work in the writing of a text, in which both narrative and medicine contribute to help the patient, to give an empathic form to his condition of suffering. Amedeo Anelli’s essay, Giovanni Sias. Un ricordo, is a critical “portrait” of the psychoanalyst, who tried to think not only about the problems of his discipline, but also about his principles of being human. The question Sias liked to ask himself is: Why does psychoanalysis exist? Sias had a real faith in the curative power of literature and trusted in a unified and complex vision of humanity given by an ethics of writing and thinking, in which the protagonist is not the writer or the psychoanalyst, but the intellectual who feels a responsibility to people and, in general, to society as a whole.
***************
Kamen’, XXXI, 61 – Giugno 2022
Sezione FILOSOFIA
Ludovico Geymonat (1908-1991), professor of History of Philosophy and Philosophy of Science at the Universities of Padua and Milan (Università Statale) was one of the most important Italian philosophers, historians of philosophy, epistemologists, mathematicians, and translators of the 20th century. Therefore, the Filosofia section is devoted to him in this issue of Kamen’. The first part of this section offers scholars and common readers a significant selection of Geymonat’s rare writings on Mathematics, the concept of “scientificity” and the teaching of Philosophy. The second one consists of Fabio Minazzi’s essay, Ludovico Geymonat e la sua personalità intellettuale, morale e civile, which aims to be a critical “portrait” of this philosopher considered not only as the founder in Italy of the 20th-century epistemology, but also as a personality who contributed to build the dream of a society based on highest intellectual, moral and civil values. Geymonat questioned the statutes of sciences, their limits and their great cognitive potential without ever losing sight of the horizon of the deepest needs of the human being. Born and lived in a century ravaged by wars and social injustices, he was able to oppose his worship of reason – felt as always sought-after ability to understand his humanity and other human beings –, the destructive impulses of the 20th century (anxiety, fear and inconstancy).
Sezione POESIA
Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni (1692-1768) was a poet and librettist, loved by good society and much hated or rather harshly criticised by his colleagues, such as Baretti. Above all Frugoni was famous for his lyrical and mincing verses in the manner of Arcadia and for having been court poet in Parma. However, Frugoni was also a satirical poet and wrote sonnets in the manner of Berni (Sonetti bernieschi) and familial poems whose tones became unexpectedly more vivid and true. So his ironic, sometimes sarcastic poetry appeals to the modern reader for the strength of its denunciation. Precisely to a notable choice of this comic production of Frugoni is devoted a part of the Poesia section. The other part is occupied by Guido Conti’s article Rileggere il Frugoni satirico. Focusing on Frugoni’s satirical poetry, on the one hand Conti shows the economic and social difficulties of this intellectual, his attempts to survive and to affirm his identity; on the other hand, his true artistic and poetic creativity. Frugoni was obliged to pursue the trite genre of laudatory poetry, but in his satiric poems he analyses and criticises the entire court life with a special attention for hypocrisy, supported by the art of calumny, and sexual habits.
Sezione CRITICA
Silvio Guarnieri (1910-1992) was a literary critic, writer and university teacher at Timișoara and Pisa. He was very close to the group of intellectuals who used to meet in Florence at the Giubbe Rosse café (Alessandro Bonsanti, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Arturo Loria, Eugenio Montale, Elio Vittorini, etc.) and who always held him in high esteem (first and foremost Montale) for his honesty and critical acumen. Today Guarnieri is little read and studied, yet he left remarkable pages such as those about Niccolò Gallo and the Nobel Prize criteria that can be read in this section of Kamen’. Luigi Baldacci’s fine essay, L’impronta di Guarnieri, completes the Critica section. Baldacci focuses on the fact that the critical imprint left by Guarnieri in our literature is not ephemeral, because he literally gives life to a new Italian Twentieth century: that of Montale, Gadda, Comisso, Loria’s new Realism etc.
***************
Kamen’, XXXII, 62 – Gennaio 2023
Sezione CRITICA
It is only in the last decade that the poet and critic Roberto Rebora (1910-1991) has once again become the subject of new critical insights, thanks to Amedeo Anelli who wrote a monograph on him (Qui sto e tu? Interrogazioni sulla poesia di Roberto Rebora, Lucca, ZonaFranca, 2012) and collected the entire poetic production of the Milanese poet (Poesie 1932-1991, Milano, Mimesis, 2021) and thanks to Università Cattolica of Milan. Less well known, however, is Rebora’s considerable critical production in both the literary and theatrical spheres. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Critica section is devoted to him. Critica is divided into two parts. The first offers scholars a significant choice of important critical writings by Rebora, scattered in literary journals and periodicals which are also difficult to find. These include illuminating essays on Giuseppe Ungaretti, Carlo Betocchi and Vittorio Sereni, but also on theatre and the role of the actor.
The second part consists of an article («La poesia invece arriva alle cose». Roberto Rebora: riflessioni, memorie e testimonianze), by Amedeo Anelli, who focuses on the themes and theoretical novelties of Rebora’s poetic production, in particular its original link with the rationalist philosophy of Antonio Banfi and the poetic “School of Milan” (Daria Menicanti, Antonia Pozzi, Vittorio Sereni, etc.).
Sezione POESIA
Daniele Beghè, born in Parma in 1963, lives in seclusion, intentionally far from the public eye.. He started writing and publishing his verses at the age of 40, but his poetic voice immediately attracted critical attention. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Poesia section is devoted to him. Poesia is divided into two parts. The first offers to scholars a meaningful choice of Beghè’s unpublished poems, in which the reader will discover the Author’s gaze pointed in an original way towards today’s daily life: that one about an alienating urban life in the heaviness of insecure work in every sense, among roads tangled in curves and straights, chaotic traffic, benches in dirty avenues, which however allow the human being a meditative pause to rejoin himself.
The second part consists of an article (Daniele Beghè, o la poesia come «bestia calma») by Daniela Marcheschi, that deals with the most relevant formal features in Beghè’s verses (mixing of genres of poetry and prose; metric of selected texts etc.), but also emphasizes the humanistic tension present in this Author, his will to always and in any case tend to a new humanity.
Sezione FILOSOFIA
Mikel Dufrenne (1910-1995) was for many decades Professor of Philosophy at the Universities of Poitiers and Paris X Nanterre. He was one of the leading contemporary scholars of Aesthetics and a colleague of Dino Formaggio with whom he collaborated on numerous research projects and publications, including the fundamental Trattato di Estetica (Milano, Mondadori, 1981, 2 vols). Dufrenne’s research – which innovated the aesthetic thought still often tied to the tradition of Romantic and decadent Idealism without appearing to be so – is also collected in other volumes such as Le Poétique (Paris, PUF, 1963; Italian edition: Il senso del poetico, trad. by Luigia Zili, Urbino, 4 Venti, 1961), Esthétique et philosophie (Paris, Klincksieck, 1967-1976-1981, 3 vols) and L’Inventaire des a priori. Recherche del’originaire (Paris, Christian Bourgois Editeur, 1981). In today’s Italy, Dufrenne’s works are no longer translated and even less read and studied. Therefore, in this issue of Kamen’, the Filosofia section is devoted to him. Filosofia offers scholars a significant selection of pages taken from Phénoménologie de l’expérience esthétique (in the Italian translation by Liliana Magrini: Fenomenologia dell’esperienza estetica, Roma, Lerici, 1969) and, to a much greater extent, from Dufrenne’s L’Inventaire des a priori: enlightening pages, many of which have never been read in Italy and in which the French philosopher reflects on the concepts of Nature, Space, Reason and Intuition, on their relations and their formal implications.