Citation

Benvegnu D. Italian Culture 2016; 34(2): 81-97.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016)

DOI

10.1080/01614622.2016.1158581

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Carlo Michelstaedter (1987-1910) is mostly known for his tragic suicide and for his undefended tesi di laurea, titled La persuasione e la rettorica. He has thus been commonly regarded as a marginal, peripheral thinker, and his work has been often placed on the outskirts of the Italian philosophical and literary canon. In this article I focus precisely on Michelstaedter as a minor author, and on his work as an example of minor writing, but in light of what Deleuze and Guattari have called "minor literature," a concept they first enunciate in their work on Kafka. A comparison between Deleuze's and Guattari's theories and Michelstaedter's oeuvre does not in fact confirm Michelstaedter's purportedly marginal position vis à vis canonical Italian culture. Rather, it allows, first, a reassessment of the potential of the attribute minor that overturns the negative connotations attached to Michelstaedter's peripherality, and, second, a literary and pragmatic interpretation of his work capable of both preserving its uncanny intensity and underlining its socio-political implications. © 2016 American Association for Italian Studies.

Language: en

Keywords

Deleuze and Guattari; La persuasione e la rettorica; Michelstaedter; Minor literature; Multilingualism; Philosophy and literature