Manifestoes of Surrealism by André Breton

Manifestoes of Surrealism by André Breton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality.

There remains madness, "the madness that one locks up," as it has aptly been described. That madness or another…. We all know, in fact, that the insane owe their incarceration to a tiny number of legally reprehensible acts and that, were it not for these acts their freedom (or what we see as their freedom) would not be threatened. I am willing to admit that they are, to some degree, victims of their imagination, in that it induces them not to pay attention to certain rules – outside of which the species feels threatened – which we are all supposed to know and respect. But their profound indifference to the way in which we judge them, and even to the various punishments meted out to them, allows us to suppose that they derive a great deal of comfort and consolation from their imagination, that they enjoy their madness sufficiently to endure the thought that its validity does not extend beyond themselves. And, indeed, hallucinations, illusions, etc., are not a source of trifling pleasure. The best controlled sensuality partakes of it, and I know that there are many evenings when I would gladly that pretty hand which, during the last pages of Taine’s L’Intelligence, indulges in some curious misdeeds. I could spend my whole life prying loose the secrets of the insane. These people are honest to a fault, and their naiveté has no peer but my own. Christopher Columbus should have set out to discover America with a boatload of madmen. And note how this madness has taken shape, and endured.

It is not the fear of madness which will oblige us to leave the flag of imagination furled.

The case against the realistic attitude demands to be examined, following the case against the materialistic attitude. The latter, more poetic in fact than the former, admittedly implies on the part of man a kind of monstrous pride which, admittedly, is monstrous, but not a new and more complete decay. It should above all be viewed as a welcome reaction against certain ridiculous tendencies of spiritualism. Finally, it is not incompatible with a certain nobility of thought.

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Pensées by Blaise Pascal

Pensées by Blaise Pascal

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

" Let us then examine this point,

and say, "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide

nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at

the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you

wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according

to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know

nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice;

for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault,

they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all. "Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see.

Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to

lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your

knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and

misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since

you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us

weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances.

If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation

that He is. "That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much."

Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two

lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you

would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be

imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game

where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and

happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only

would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act

stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in

which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an

infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain,

a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.

It is all divided; where-ever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss

against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one

is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for

infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.

.....The end of this discourse.—Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side?

You will be faithful, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, truthful. Certainly you

will not have those poisonous pleasures, glory and luxury; but will you not have others?

I will tell you that you will thereby gain in this life, and that, at each step you take on this

road, you will see so great certainty of gain, so much nothingness in what you risk, that

you will at last recognise that you have wagered for something certain and infinite, for

which you have given nothing.

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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.

7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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Rudyard Kipling: Selected Poems by Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling: Selected Poems by Rudyard Kipling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Tommy"

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

"The Islanders"

NO DOUBT but ye are the People-your throne is above the King's.
Whoso speaks in your presence must say acceptable things:
Bowing the head in worship, bending the knee in fear-
Bringing the word well smoothen-such as a King should hear.

Fenced by your careful fathers, ringed by your leaden seas,
Long did ye wake in quiet and long lie down at ease;
Till Ye said of Strife, "What is it?" of the Sword, "It is far from our ken";
Till ye made a sport of your shrunken hosts and a toy of your armed men.
Ye stopped your ears to the warning-ye would neither look nor heed-
Ye set your leisure before their toil and your lusts above their need.
Because of your witless learning and your beasts of warren and chase,
Ye grudged your sons to their service and your fields for their camping-place.
Ye forced them glean in the highways the straw for the bricks they brought;
Ye forced them follow in byways the craft that ye never taught.
Ye hampered and hindered and crippled; ye thrust out of sight and away
Those that would serve you for honour and those that served you for pay.
Then were the judgments loosened; then was your shame revealed,
At the hands of a little people, few but apt in the field.
Yet ye were saved by a remnant (and your land's long-suffering star),
When your strong men cheered in their millions while your
striplings went to the war.
Sons of the sheltered city-unmade, unhandled, unmeet-
Ye pushed them raw to the battle as ye picked them raw from the street.
And what did ye look they should compass? Warcraft learned in a breath,
Knowledge unto occasion at the first far view of Death?
So? And ye train your horses and the dogs ye feed and prize?
How are the beasts more worthy than the souls, your sacrifice?
But ye said, "Their valour shall show them"; but ye said, "The end is close."
And ye sent them comfits and pictures to help them harry your foes:
And ye vaunted your fathomless power, and ye flaunted your iron pride,
Ere ye fawned on the Younger Nations for the men who could shoot and ride!
Then ye returned to your trinkets; then ye contented your souls
With the flannelled fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals.
Given to strong delusion, wholly believing a lie,
Ye saw that the land lay fenceless, and ye let the months go by
Waiting some easy wonder, hoping some saving sign-
Idle -openly idle-in the lee of the forespent Line.
Idle -except for your boasting-and what is your boasting worth
If ye grudge a year of service to the lordliest life on earth?
Ancient, effortless, ordered, cycle on cycle set,
Life so long untroubled, that ye who inherit forget
It was not made with the mountains, it is not one with the deep.
Men, not gods, devised it. Men, not gods, must keep.
Men, not children, servants, or kinsfolk called from afar,
But each man born in the Island broke to the matter of war.
Soberly and by custom taken and trained for the same,
Each man born in the Island entered at youth to the game-
As it were almost cricket, not to be mastered in haste,
But after trial and labour, by temperance, living chaste.
As it were almost cricket-as it were even your play,
Weighed and pondered and worshipped, and practised day and day.
So ye shall bide sure-guarded when the restless lightnings wake
In the womb of the blotting war-cloud, and the pallid nations quake.
So, at the haggard trumpets, instant your soul shall leap
Forthright, accoutred, accepting-alert from the wells of sleep.
So, at the threat ye shall summon-so at the need ye shall send
Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end;
Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise,
Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice. . . .
But ye say, "It will mar our comfort." Ye say, "It will minish our trade."
Do ye wait for the spattered shrapnel ere ye learn how a gun is laid?
For the low, red glare to southward when the raided coast- towns burn?
(Light ye shall have on that lesson, but little time to learn.)
Will ye pitch some white pavilion, and lustily even the odds,
With nets and hoops and mallets, with rackets and bats and rods
Will the rabbit war with your foemen-the red deer horn them for hire?
Your kept cock-pheasant keep you?-he is master of many a shire,
Arid, aloof, incurious, unthinking, unthanking, gelt,
Will ye loose your schools to flout them till their brow-beat columns melt?
Will ye pray them or preach them, or print them, or ballot them back from your shore?
Will your workmen issue a mandate to bid them strike no more?
Will ye rise and dethrone your rulers? (Because ye were idle both?
Pride by Insolence chastened? Indolence purged by Sloth?)
No doubt but ye are the People; who shall make you afraid?
Also your gods are many; no doubt but your gods shall aid.
Idols of greasy altars built for the body's ease;
Proud little brazen Baals and talking fetishes;
Teraphs of sept and party and wise wood-pavement gods-
These shall come down to the battle and snatch you from under the rods?
From the gusty, flickering gun-roll with viewless salvoes rent,
And the pitted hail of the bullets that tell not whence they were sent.
When ye are ringed as with iron, when ye are scourged as with whips,
When the meat is yet in your belly, and the boast is yet on your lips;
When ye go forth at morning and the noon beholds you broke,
Ere ye lie down at even, your remnant, under the yoke?

No doubt but ye are the People-absolute, strong, and wise;
Whatever your heart has desired ye have not withheld from your eyes.
On your own heads, in your own hands, the sin and the caving lies!

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Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud, James Strachey (Editor / Translator), Peter Gay (Introduction)

Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

...One is bound to feel guilty as an expression of the conflict due to the ambivalence, of the eternal struggle between Eros and Thanatos. This conflict is set ongoing as soon as men are faced with the task of living together.....The price we pay for our advanced civilization is a loss of happiness trough the heightening of the sense of guilt....

Il senso di colpa é l'espressione del conflitto ambivalente dell'eterna lotta tra Eros e Thanatos. Questo conflitto si accende appena gli uomini sono posti nella necessitá di vivere assieme....Il progresso civile ha un prezzo pagato in perdita di felicitá a mano a mano che aumenta il senso di colpa....



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Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Riletto in francese a causa della sparizione della mia copia italiana so benissimo dove. Anche stavolta la signora Emma mi ha lasciato una tristezza di fondo, non che non me lo potessi aspettare, ma credevo che, siccome era una rilettura, mi avrebbe fatto meno effetto. Ora lo scopo é quello di scriverci un paper di almeno 800 parole paragonando Flaubert a Kant, Rousseau e Marx e io sono assolutamente senza idee e non so dove mettere le mani.....

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On Natural Selection by Charles Darwin

On Natural Selection by Charles Darwin

Reread only the 4th chapter for my MOOC:

We have reason to believe, as stated in the first chapter, that a change in the conditions of life, by specially acting on the reproductive system, causes or increases variability; and in the foregoing case the conditions of life are supposed to have undergone a change, and this would manifestly be favourable to natural selection, by giving a better chance of profitable variations occurring; and unless profitable variations do occur, natural selection can do nothing. Not that, as I believe, any extreme amount of variability is necessary; as man can certainly produce great results by adding up in any given direction mere individual differences, so could Nature, but far more easily, from having incomparably longer time at her disposal. Nor do I believe that any great physical change, as of climate, or any unusual degree of isolation to check immigration, is actually necessary to produce new and unoccupied places for natural selection to fill up by modifying and improving some of the varying inhabitants. For as all the inhabitants of each country are struggling together with nicely balanced forces, extremely slight modifications in the structure or habits of one inhabitant would often give it an advantage over others; and still further modifications of the same kind would often still further increase the advantage. No country can be named in which all the native inhabitants are now so perfectly adapted to each other and to the physical conditions under which they live, that none of them could anyhow be improved; for in all countries, the natives have been so far conquered by naturalised productions, that they have allowed foreigners to take firm possession of the land. And as foreigners have thus everywhere beaten some of the natives, we may safely conclude that the natives might have been modified with advantage, so as to have better resisted such intruders....Thus it is, as I believe, that when the males and females of any animal have the same general habits of life, but differ in structure, colour, or ornament, such differences have been mainly caused by sexual selection; that is, individual males have had, in successive generations, some slight advantage over other males, in their weapons, means of defence, or charms; and have transmitted these advantages to their male offspring. Yet, I would not wish to attribute all such sexual differences to this agency: for we see peculiarities arising and becoming attached to the male sex in our domestic animals (as the wattle in male carriers, horn-like protuberances in the cocks of certain fowls, etc.), which we cannot believe to be either useful to the males in battle, or attractive to the females. We see analogous cases under nature, for instance, the tuft of hair on the breast of the turkey-cock, which can hardly be either useful or ornamental to this bird;—indeed, had the tuft appeared under domestication, it would have been called a monstrosity.... A large amount of inheritable and diversified variability is favourable, but I believe mere individual differences suffice for the work. A large number of individuals, by giving a better chance for the appearance within any given period of profitable variations, will compensate for a lesser amount of variability in each individual, and is, I believe, an extremely important element of success. Though nature grants vast periods of time for the work of natural selection, she does not grant an indefinite period; for as all organic beings are striving, it may be said, to seize on each place in the economy of nature, if any one species does not become modified and improved in a corresponding degree with its competitors, it will soon be exterminated....Although I do not doubt that isolation is of considerable importance in the production of new species, on the whole I am inclined to believe that largeness of area is of more importance, more especially in the production of species, which will prove capable of enduring for a long period, and of spreading widely. Throughout a great and open area, not only will there be a better chance of favourable variations arising from the large number of individuals of the same species there supported, but the conditions of life are infinitely complex from the large number of already existing species; and if some of these many species become modified and improved, others will have to be improved in a corresponding degree or they will be exterminated. Each new form, also, as soon as it has been much improved, will be able to spread over the open and continuous area, and will thus come into competition with many others. Hence more new places will be formed, and the competition to fill them will be more severe, on a large than on a small and isolated area. Moreover, great areas, though now continuous, owing to oscillations of level, will often have recently existed in a broken condition, so that the good effects of isolation will generally, to a certain extent, have concurred. Finally, I conclude that, although small isolated areas probably have been in some respects highly favourable for the production of new species, yet that the course of modification will generally have been more rapid on large areas; and what is more important, that the new forms produced on large areas, which already have been victorious over many competitors, will be those that will spread most widely, will give rise to most new varieties and species, and will thus play an important part in the changing history of the organic world....That natural selection will always act with extreme slowness, I fully admit. Its action depends on there being places in the polity of nature, which can be better occupied by some of the inhabitants of the country undergoing modification of some kind. The existence of such places will often depend on physical changes, which are generally very slow, and on the immigration of better adapted forms having been checked. But the action of natural selection will probably still oftener depend on some of the inhabitants becoming slowly modified; the mutual relations of many of the other inhabitants being thus disturbed. Nothing can be effected, unless favourable variations occur, and variation itself is apparently always a very slow process. The process will often be greatly retarded by free intercrossing. Many will exclaim that these several causes are amply sufficient wholly to stop the action of natural selection. I do not believe so. On the other hand, I do believe that natural selection will always act very slowly, often only at long intervals of time, and generally on only a very few of the inhabitants of the same region at the same time. I further believe, that this very slow, intermittent action of natural selection accords perfectly well with what geology tells us of the rate and manner at which the inhabitants of this world have changed....The truth of the principle, that the greatest amount of life can be supported by great diversification of structure, is seen under many natural circumstances. In an extremely small area, especially if freely open to immigration, and where the contest between individual and individual must be severe, we always find great diversity in its inhabitants....As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications."

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Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Letto per il corso sul postmodernismo, veramente interessante come punto di vista e talmente ben spiegato che l´ho capito anche io.

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Light in August by William Faulkner

Light in August by William Faulkner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this very complicated book, the story is so fascinating even if not clear with all these feedback and forwards and stream of counsciousness. The characters are really impressive, for example Joe Christmas is for me unforgivable, but Lena also, a pure creature that nothing changes.

Mi é piaciuto questo libro molto complicato, la storia é affascinante anche se con tutti questi balzi temporali e stream of counsciousness non é particolarmente chiara. Anche i personaggi sono particolari, per esempio Joe Christmas resterá per me indimenticabile, ma anche Lena, con la sua inscalfibile armatura di purezza.

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Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Anche riletto nell'ottica delle lezioni del corso su "The fiction on relationship" questo libro ha sempre avuto in sé qualcosa per me di estremamente disturbante e non é lo stupro della figlia, quanto piuttosto, la sua accettazione da parte della stessa donna che l´ha subito, il suo sposare il probabile mandante per passare in qualche modo sotto la sua ala protettrice, ecco forse questa cosa io proprio non la posso accettare, sembra come se di tutte le ingiustizie che capitano nel romanzo questa sia proprio quella che mi rende il tutto inaccettabile. Resta comunque un grandissimo libro, ben scritto, pieno di citazioni, che senza il corso non avrei mai colto, e indubbiamente indimenticabile, solo che io a volte vorrei poterlo fare.

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Beloved by Toni Morrison

Beloved by Toni Morrison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Such a wonderful and well-written story that starts during the Secession War in the U.S. and ends some years after. A black family is splitted and in the end partially reunited and what emerges is the strongness of some of the women involved; men are there but in a way they are not strong enough to survive some things like women did. A Pulitzer Prize from a Nobel Prize, to read absolutely!

Storia bellissima e ben scritta che inizia durante la guerra di Secessione degli Stati Uniti e termina qualche anno dopo. Una famiglia nera viene prima divisa e poi parzialmente riunita e quello che emrge in modo drammatico è la forza di alcune delle donne coinvolte; ci sono anche gli uomini, ma in qualche modo non sembrano abbastanza forti da sopravvivere ad alcune delle cose sperimentate dalle donne. Un libro che ha vinto il premio Pulitzer da una scrittrice premiata con il Nobel, da non perdere!

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To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As usual I didn't understand the first part to enjoy the last twos. Difficult book to say the least...

Come al solito non ho capito la prima parte, ma mi sono piaciute le ultime due. Libro difficile a dir poco.

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La metamorfosi by Franz Kafka

La metamorfosi by Franz Kafka
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ho finalmente colmato questa lacuna gigantesca della mia già pessima cultura, ammetto di non aver gridato al capolavoro, ma è sicuramente colpa del mio odio per gli scarafaggi.

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Paris Spleen by Charles Baudelaire, Louise Varese (Translator)

Paris Spleen by Charles Baudelaire

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Letto per il corso sul postmodernismo, questi 50 poemetti in prosa piú o meno brevi sono fantastici, danno uno spaccato preciso della Francia del tempo, che peró potrebbe rappresentare le miserie e ben poche nobiltá di tutta la societá europea del tempo. Baudelaire con quel suo modo tra il cinico e l'annoiato riesce a rendere, secondo me, il tutto con una chiarezza impressionante.

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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Michael Mason (Annotations)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had the pleasure to re-read this book during a course, and it gave different sensation since last time, when I first read it I was an adolescent, but know it was a pleasure to read it after studying the feminist versione of the "mad woman in the attic".

Ho vuto il piacere di rileggere questo classico per un corso, e mi ha dato delle emozioni diverse dall'ultima volta che lo avevo letto ed ero un'adolescente; comunque affascinante versione quella femminista della "donna pazza nel sottotetto" ;)

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Benito Cereno by Herman Melville

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I absolutely prefer Melville' short stories compared to the whale! In this one everything happened on a ship and the plot is easy but still quite impressive. Remarkable.

Preferisco di gran lunga i racconti di Melville al pesantissimo Moby Dick. In questa avviene tutto su una nava, la trama è semplice ma resta impressa. Notevole.

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Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville

Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Melville wrote a kind of comedy of the absurd when this type od literature still had yet to be invented, but I'm wrong to talk about comedy, better say a tragedy of the absurd, that could quickly become one of my favorite stories.

Melville ha scritto una specie di commedia dell'assurdo quando questo genere ancora doveva ancora essere inventato, ma sbaglio a parlare di commedia, una tragedia dell'assurdo che però potrebbe rapidamente diventare uno dei miei racconti preferiti.

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Manon Lescaut by Antoine François Prévost, Jean Sgard (Introduction), Leonard Tancock (Translation)

Manon Lescaut by Antoine François Prévost
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Mentre leggevo il libro, quello che per me era strano era che, come Des Grieux era all'inizio, così coinvolto con la chiesa che era per lui così facile da dimenticare i suoi voti e le sue credoes religiose e così via. Poi è stata ancora più deludente quanto sia stato facile per lui per cercare la Provvidenza, una volta che lui era senza Manon, per sempre o no. Quindi mi chiedevo su queste somiglianze tra l'autore, Prévost, e Des Grieux: entrambi si trovano pace, alla fine del "abbraccio della Chiesa". Quando Prevost scrive Manon Lescaut era ancora "al di fuori della chiesa" correre da un paese ad un altro, ha anche messo "esiliato" dopo il suo nome, ma alla fine ha scritto che uno dei suoi personaggi più controversi trovare conforto tornando alla chiesa; Des Grieux dice: "La mia tranquillità della mente di essere nuovamente restaurata, la mia cura rapidamente seguito ho cominciato a sentire solo le più alte aspirazioni di onore, e diligentemente svolto le funzioni della mia nomina, mentre aspettavo l'arrivo delle navi di Francia, che erano sempre dovuti. in questo periodo dell'anno. ho deciso di tornare al mio paese natale, non per espiare lo scandalo della mia vita precedente per la mia futura buona condotta. "(Manon Lescaut pag 327). Quindi, la mia tesi è che Prévost molto prima che realmente è tornato "all'interno della chiesa", ha scritto questo romanzo con lo spirito di un prete che non è riuscita e forse lui sapeva cosa stava per accadere e probabilmente preparato il terreno con questo libro, anche se è stato bandito e bruciato a Parigi. Ho visto in questa certezza di Des Grieux, che tornando alla sua fede sarebbe l'unica cosa portare conforto alla sua anima e corpo, che l'Abbé Prévost si era diviso tra i suoi desideri in conflitto per una vita religiosa da una parte, e il suo gusto per piacere mondano nell'altra. Così sembra probabile (per me) che il personaggio di De Grieux può essere basata, almeno in parte, su l'autore e ci possono anche essere stato un omologo della vita reale di Manon. Tutti possiamo tornare alla ragione umana contro il perdono divino? Quindi forse questo è il motivo per cui Manon muore nel momento in cui ha "visto la luce" e ha "aperto gli occhi" del suo amante. Ma forse il romanzo di Prévost non è solo un capolavoro di introspezione psicologica, una confessione personale, ma è come un grido di un'anima sofferente per i suoi peccati e rimpianti, alla ricerca di una spiegazione per le proprie colpe. Così, alla fine penso che Prévost non andò molto lontano dal suo contesto cristiano, quindi non posso davvero vedere Manon Lescaut come come un romanzo pre-romantico, forse giansenistic (P. Trompeo, Vecchie e Nuove Rilegature gianseniste, Napoli, 1958 , pag. 155.), ma non preromantica, o forse dipende semplicemente dal lettore.

View all my reviews While I was reading the book, what for me was strange was that, as Des Grieux was at the beginning, so involved with the church it was for him so easy to forget about his votes and his religious credoes and so on. Then it was even more disappointing how easy it was for him to search for Providence, once he was without Manon, forever or not. So I was wondering about these similarities between the author, Prévost, and Des Grieux: they both find peace at the end in the "embrace of the church" . When Prevost writes Manon Lescaut he was still "outside the church" running from one land to another, he even put "exiled" after his name but eventually he wrote that one of his most controversial characters find solace going back to the church; Des Grieux says: "My tranquillity of mind being again restored, my cure speedily followed. I began only to feel the highest aspirations of honour, and diligently performed the duties of my appointment, whilst expecting the arrival of the vessels from France, which were always due at this period of the year. I resolved to return to my native country, there to expiate the scandal of my former life by my future good conduct."(Manon Lescaut pag 327). So my thesis is that Prèvost long before he really went back "inside the church", wrote this novel with the spirit of a priest that failed and maybe he knew what was going to happen and he probably prepared the ground with this book, even if it was banned and burnt in Paris. I saw in this certainty of Des Grieux, that going back to his faith would be the only thing bringing solace to his body and soul, that the Abbé Prévost himself was torn between his conflicting desires for a religious life on the one hand and his taste for worldly pleasure in the other. So It seems likely (to me) that the character of des Grieux can be based, at least partly, on the author and there may even have been a real-life counterpart to Manon. Can all go back to Human reason against divine forgiveness? So maybe that´s the reason why Manon dies in the moment she "saw the light" and has "opened the eyes" of her lover. But maybe Prévost's novel is not only a masterpiece of psychological insight, a personal confession but it is as well as a cry of a soul suffering for his sins and regrets, looking for an explanation to his own faults. So in the end I think that Prévost didn´t get very far from his christian context, so I cannot really see Manon Lescaut as as a pre-romantic novel, maybe giansenistic (P. Trompeo, Vecchie e nuove rilegature gianseniste, Napoli, 1958,pag. 155.), but not preromantic, or perhaps it simply depends on the reader.