Quaderni IRCrES-CNR, (2018) vol. 3, n. 2 cap. 3

Del romanzo-paesaggio mediterraneo

The Mediterranean novel-landscape

Massimo Quaini[1]

 

Abstract

Is there a Mediterranean soul that we can perceive by rêverie? Is this soul still able to inform the places we dwell? Can we still immediately recognize them as our subjective and personal countryside? And, more indirectly, can we read them as links, relations or complexes shaped as knots to be rationally unraveled and then recreated? If this is true, we need to take some relevant Mediterranean landscapes and sceneries as valuable reference points; we have to listen to them. Moreover, there is a second essential preliminary topic: the “quality” of these Mediterranean environments exists thanks to the fact that poets, writers, philosophers and geographers have chosen them over time as a setting for their perspectives and reflections on the human condition. This is why we should consider our explorations across the world of literature and memory the same as the trips we perform on Earth’s surface.

We shall evoke some landscapes for the information they provide on cultural models and lifestyles, and we shall compare them with the current cultural shortages processes, typical of the spectacle society, of the virtual society, of real-time communication, and of the crisis of reality, as a consequence of the “totalitarian lie”. These features are deeply rooted into our system to the point of asking ourselves whether the “world is really turning into a big phantom”.

Keywords: Walter Benjamin, Francesco Biamonti, Italo Calvino, Mediterranean landscape.

DOI: 10.23760/2499-6661.2018.006

 

How to cite this article:

Quaini Massimo, 2018. “Del romanzo-paesaggio mediterraneo”, in Emina A. (a cura di), Territori e Scenari. Ripensare il Mediterraneo, Quaderni IRCrES-CNR, vol. 3, n. 2, pp. 25-34, http://dx.doi.org/10.23760/2499-6661.2018.006

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[1] Questo saggio è pubblicato postumo a cura di Antonella Emina, a pochi mesi dalla scomparsa di Massimo Quaini (1941-2017), studioso, geografo e ambientalista, già professore di Geografia all’università di Genova.