Resumen de The catabasis myth as revisited in "Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini by Giorgio Bassani
- español
El objetivo de este estudio es analizar los mecanismos de subversión del mito en “Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini”, de Giorgio Basani. La novela cuenta el itinerario de un joven judío bajo las leyes raciales y enamorado de una joven que parece vivir en un jardín encantado. El autor se inspira en diversos mitos, especialmente, en el de la catábasis. Aunque recurre a varias tradiciones literarias prestigiosas vinculadas al mito del descenso a los infiernos. no duda en invertir y trastocar las versiones clásicas y medievales para adaptarlos a los tiempos dolorosos y caóticos de la Shoah. El descenso a los infiernos de Eneas y Orfeo, así como el recorrido de Teseo en el laberinto, presentan su riqueza semántica al autor, que desestructura los mitos para reconstruirlos en función de su proyecto ético y literario. Sirviéndose de la maleabilidad de los mitos, por el propio mecanismo de subversión del discurso mitológico, parece mostrar que el individuo ya no ive en una sociedad de valores seguros y reconfortantes, sino en un universo donde todo ha de ser revisitado y reconsiderado a la luz de una época cuya coherencia es difícil de encontrar.
- English
Our purpose is to analyse the mechanisms of the subversion of myth in Giorgio Bassani's novel “Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini”. In this novel, the author depicts the itinerary of a young Italian Jew in love with a young girl who seems to be living in an enchanted garden, in the days of the racial laws. He draws his inspiration from many myths, in particular from the catabasis one, which he revisits, modifies, subverts and parodies. He calls upon numerous prestigious literary traditions linked to the myth of a descent into Hell, but he dares run counter the classical and medieval versions which he feeds on, but which he reverses and upsets, as he adapts them lo his painful and chaotic period, that conjures up Shoah. Whether it be the myth of Aeneas descending to Hell, or the one of Theseus in the maze, or the Orpheus one, Bassani makes the most of the semantic and polysemic richness of the myth in order to destructure it so as to rebuild it according to his ethic and literacy scheme. Taking advantage of the pliability of myths, he seems to show, by the very mechanism of the subversion of mythological discourse, that the individual no longer evolves in a society of sound and comforting values, but in a universe where everything is to be revisited and reconsidered, in the light of a time whose coherence is difficult to retrieve.
