Tag: literature

If a people had no distinctive features other than language, this would already be enough to give it an entirely original literature, even if it were limited to remaking what has already been done in other languages. That is to say: if the language is authentic, it can never be imitated, because there will always be something unique about it. But beyond this: the greatest literature will be that which encompasses, in its own language, the widest range of models and themes, and therefore it is more than convenient, but necessary, to rethink in one’s own language what has already been thought of in others, to recreate what has already been created, endowing it, through language, with authentically vernacular colors: this is the only way to build a vigorous literary tradition of universal value.

There are sentences that are worth more than books, and it is interesting to note how in-depth study is not always the source of the greatest inspiration. There are those for whom a powerful phrase or even a summary resonates with an intensity capable of generating decisive, transforming, and unimaginable consequences. These are cases in which the impact, by its own force, does not require any further analysis or reflection. And then the phrase, assimilated, remains in the mind associated with the flash it carried with it. It is about knowing how to value them.

It is always dangerous for the artist to balance the need for comprehensiveness with the need not to stray too far from the essential. The first is necessary because it delimits, whether one likes it or not, the dimension of the artist himself, whose work will be considered short-sighted or vicious if it does not possess, if not a balance, a variety that brings it reasonably close to what life and the real world consist of. This is why some, determined to overcome this problem, end up losing themselves in works that add less and more mischaracterize the author’s identity. There is no sure measure. What is certain is that, just as insistence on obsessions that we do not possess may seem tiresome, it is discouraging when we come across works in which we find no trace of an artist we thought we knew.

In short, we give more value to works that, from an entirely subjective perspective, generate a greater impact. This is the only parameter that really matters to us. It also seems to be the fairest, since it is independent of our predispositions. We cannot control what a work is capable of generating in us, and from this we realize that we can do nothing about its power. So, in the last instance, all that is needed in our judgment is sincerity to admit how much a work has been able to transform us.