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| Format: | Recurso digital |
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Zenodo
2025
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17446916 |
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Table of Contents:
- <p>The paper aims to document the various ways in which the writer Francesco Mastriani (1819–1891) addresses the theme of death in his extensive corpus of novels and short stories. The narration of this event tends to follow three different paradigms: the holy death, the horrific death, and the medicalized death. These categories refer to distinct textual genres and offer representations of the event that are more or less realistic. The holy death, narrated with frequent references to the religious sphere, presents dying as a serene passage, in which the dying person is surrounded by loved ones and comforted by faith (as in the case of Beatrice in <em>La cieca di Sorrento</em>). Quite different in terms of language and the use of unsettling imagery is the horrific death, exemplified in the short story <em>Brown</em>, where a chemist, in order to prove he has discovered the secret of immortality, kills and revives his beloved. The resurrected young woman is portrayed in unrealistic terms that emphasize her frightening and decayed appearance. The author’s medical training and familiarity with scientific treatises emerge in the third type of representation, in which death is presented in clinical terms: an example can be found in the description of the body of Baron Edmondo by Dr. Weiss in the novel <em>Il mio cadavere</em>. The aim of the study is to reflect on the plausibility of these different narrative types, highlighting how each blends mimesis, invention, and adherence to a model in representing the truth of the body.</p>