Strumenti critici | 2016 | N. 3

The article aims to provide a brief history of «Strumenti critici». Special attention is paid to the wide-ranging critical perspectives of the journal as well as to the key points of its methodological thinking and to the new tasks prompted by the changes in contemporary world.

Previously unstudied documents held in Giulio Einaudi Archive are analyzed to shed light on the birth of «Strumenti critici» and the first critical discussions opened up by the journal.

This contribution outlines D’Arco Silvio Avalle’s research in the field of semiology, starting from his outstanding essays on Eugenio Montale (the sonnet Gli orecchini) and Dante (the legend of Ulysses’ death), which can be both considered as the result of his extraordinary philological competence. Avalle was inspired by Ferdinand de Saussure’s conception of the linguistic sign and mythological character, and mainly focused on the problem of myth in literary texts by pointing out the influence exercised by tradition in the wide system of cultural signs.

This article reconstructs Maria Corti’s complicated critical and cultural path through her contributions published in «Strumenti critici».

The essay explores Dante Isella’s role in «Strumenti critici», focusing on his devotion to textual criticism and Gianfranco Contini.

The lyric self finds its first complete realization in Dante’s “Vita Nova” with the death of Beatrice. This essay investigates the destiny of the self in the “Commedia” by combining a psychoanalytical conception of identity with medieval theological thought and by providing insights into the first canto of the “Inferno” and the last one of the “Paradiso”.

The article focuses on Cesare Cases’ essay “Leo Spitzer e la critica stilistica” (1955), in which Cases discussed some of the most relevant issues of the stylistics, such as the dialectic between the description and the evaluation of literary texts and the problem of the objectivity of the method. This essay investigates such issues putting them in their historical and critical context.