Orme sulla sabbia, riflessione sul tempo

Liceo scientifico statale

Arcangelo Scacchi

Percorso multidisciplinare per gli esami di maturità

Orme sulla sabbia

Riflessione sul tempo

Studentessa: Capuozzo Flavia

F

Classe: 5ª. Anno scolastico 2008/2009

Indice

Introduzione ............................................................ pag. 3

• Inglese
• Virginia Woolf............................................................ pag. 4
• James Joyce............................................................... pag. 5
• Italiano
• Italo Svevo................................................................. pag. 7
• Francese
• Marcel Proust............................................................. pag. 10
• Storia dell’arte
• Salvador Dalì.............................................................. pag. 12
• Filosofia
• Nietzsche................................................................ pag. 14
• Latino
• Seneca.................................................................... pag. 16
• Storia
• Mario Rigoni Stern....................................................... pag. 19

Conclusione ................................................................. pag. 22

2

Introduzione

Il Tempo è un concetto che esprime la successione e la durata di eventi passati, presenti e futuri. Esso è ovunque, è regolatore implacabile della vita dell’uomo, sempre presente sin dall’inizio della storia dell’umanità, intangibile, impalpabile, ma strepitosamente attraente.

L’impossibilità di bloccarlo o di viaggiarci attraverso hanno da sempre afflitto l’uomo, impotente di fronte al suo flusso inesorabile, costretto a cedergli il passo, a lasciare che il proprio corpo avvizzisca sotto la sua spaventosa scure.

L’unico modo che l’essere umano ha di maneggiare il tempo è la memoria di cui è padrone: ricordi, emozioni, eventi, anniversari, tutto ciò che avviene in passato è possibile incastonarlo nella nostra mente e quanto più sarà forte il desiderio di ricordare, tanto più saranno vividi i nostri ricordi.

La memoria è dunque la compagna affidabile del tempo, ligia al doveroso compito di stabilizzare e focalizzare ciò che avviene negli attimi in cui la vita scorre, portata lontano sulle ali del tempo…

Nel nostro secolo il rapporto uomo – tempo si configura come la possibilità di vivere liberamente in funzione del tempo interiore: le passioni, le emozioni, le sensazioni attraverso le quali i secondi sembrano durare ore e i giorni sembrano volare via come i convenzionali secondi.

Questo è il risultato a cui sono giunti scrittori e artisti, in seguito alle più aspre battaglie contro il tempo. Le armi moderne di questa battaglia (macchine fotografiche, CD, computer) sono incredibilmente efficienti. Per rivivere un qualunque istante, basta schiacciare un piccolo tasto. Ciò nonostante l’uomo continua ad aggrapparsi disperatamente ad esso, e nel momento in cui crede di averlo preso, il tempo gli sfugge dalle mani. Quando guardiamo un vecchio album fotografico, teniamo in mano solo la tomba del tempo perduto e il suo involucro mummificato. Tutto ciò che bisogna fare, invece, è lanciarsi nei flutti del tempo, lasciarsi trascinare dove vuole; l’importante è uscire dalla finta consapevolezza di non poter trattenere il tempo.

3

Inglese

The desire to find new development in European novel was stimulated by the new concept of time introduced by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. He studied human process of the mind trying to explore the thoughts. He distinguished between the mathematical time of science and the time of the mind, which is lived in a personal way and changes from one person to another, or from one situation to another. Bergson called this second time “duration”. Inner time has a duration which illudes conventional clock time, thus turning the old conception of time from a sequence of separate points into an unbroken continuum.

To the lighthouse

Virginia Woolf – The relation between the external world and the interior life and the role played by Time, are the main themes in Virginia Woolf’s works.

Woolf’s imaginary is upset by the thought of how precarious existence is. The anguishing feeling of the pass of time, felt like a whirlpool who distroys every attempt to build an identity, adds to that perception of emptiness, hidden behind the apparent stability of the world. The awareness of this condition is at the base of her effort to follow minutely the comings and goings of thoughts, the alternating states of soul. She’s convinced that reality is incoherent, and it couldn’t be observed with impartiality from the outside; for this reason she only uses the point of view of the individual consciousness, so there is not the traditional dimension of time. Present, pass, futur live together one near to the other; uniportant events don’t exist, in fact even the most banal actions can be considered decisive in the interior life of the individual. Virginia Woolf adopt the stream of consciousness to reconstruct the turbulent rotating of thought, sensations, states of soul in the inside of the person. The prospectives of the carachters interweave.

To the Lighthouse,

In 1927 she wrote in a highly poetic style and, thus, is rich in

The Window, Time passes, The

metaphors and symbolism. It’s divided into three parts, and

Lighthouse. Time passes,

In the section Woolf enlists an

innovative conception of time to create windows of

opportunity for profound spiritual meditation. In doing so,

she opens the possibility of feeling the sacred in everyday

events and experiences, and in turn the possibility of

Time Passes

connecting more intensely with existence. is also

To the

the shortest of the three sections that make up

Lighthouse, and yet it covers the longest period of time:

approximately ten years. This paradox in itself contributes to

the idea that in this section Woolf transcends or collapses

ordinary temporality. In effect, however, it is not simply a

matter of Woolf transcending or collapsing linear time in this

section of her text; instead, time is made up of the complex interplay between the diachronic and synchronic dimensions. Time Passes

One of the most interesting aspects of is the emphasis that Woolf places on the synchronic dimension of time, or, in other words, the emphasis she puts on the moments in time that seem to be slowed down and perceived in depth. The major historical events in this section, like Mrs. Ramsay’s death, Prue’s marriage and her death during childbirth, and Andrew’s death during the war, are parenthetical details in the most literal sense, as they are set apart from the body of the text in parentheses. Throughout most of this section, Woolf focuses instead on what might otherwise be seen as insignificant moments. It is these moments, and the subsequent meditations that seem to extend or prolong them, that actually form the body of the text.

The following passage exemplifies Woolf’s use of synchronic moments to engage with the sacred:

“Nothing stirred in the drawing-room or in the dining-room or on the staircase. Only through the rusty hinges and swollen sea-moistened woodwork certain airs, detached from the body of the wind (the house was ramshackle after all) crept round corners and ventured indoors. Almost one might imagine them, as they entered the drawing room questioning and wondering, toying with the flap of hanging wall-paper, asking, would it hang much longer, when would it fall? Then smoothly brushing the walls, they passed on musingly as if asking the red and yellow roses on the wall-paper whether they would fade, and questioning (gently, for there was time at their disposal) the torn letters in the waste-paper basket, the flowers, the books, all of which were now open to them and asking, Were they allies? Were they enemies? How long would they endure?

So some random light directing them with its pale footfall upon stair and mat, from some uncovered star, or wandering ship, or the Lighthouse even, the little airs mounted the staircase and nosed round bedroom doors. But here, surely, they must cease. Whatever else may perish and disappear, what lies here is steadfast. Here one might say to those sliding lights, those fumbling airs that breathe and bend over the bed itself, here you can neither touch or destroy.”

Ulysses

James Joyce - The Irish writer James Joyce had been much more daring than Virginia Woolf in using the stream of consciousness, and in the demoliton of the narrative structures of the 19^th century realistic novel. Moving from the convinction that the subjective perspective is the only one possible to represent reality, he abandoned every form of classicism. He was firmly convinced that nobody thinks in complete, well-organised sentences; the thought forms in the mind without a syntactic shape, and man translates it into words and sentences to make it intelligible to others.

The author wanted to convey the thoughts and feelings as they form in the mind, hence the twisted and disrupted syntax, the sudden, abrupt passages from ont topic to another, the uncompleted sentences. As a result we seem to enter directly, without authorial intervention, into the flux and muddle of the carachters actual thoughts, and the novel moves insinuatingly from descriptions of carachters, into their minds, and out again.

Ulysses

He wrote in 1918, firstly appeared in serial form, and published only in 1922.

In this novel the borders between the ego and the world are completely demolished, the possibility of representation of the reality from the outside is roled out, external events and carachter’s thoughts are mixed without intermission, leaving a predominant place to the stream of consciousness, whom constant use witnesses the triviality of reality. The world in which the modern Ulysses lives, keeps its degradation and boorishness, even in literature that is not able to dignify or redeem it.

Since traditional time strictness and the time clear divisions prevent the description of mind activities, Joyce brings in this work a malleable sense of time; he presses Homer’s Ulysses twenty years trip in the sixteen hours experience of his Ulysses. So a minute can be much more longer than an hour. He’s able to represent the irregularity of the time through a fragmented exposition, alterning to the narration, comments on the personal experience of the protagonist in relation with traditional time and the interior monologue, aimed at reproduce the continuous flux of reality, claimed by Henri Bergson.

The grammar rules and the syntax are not used; the author proceeds by association of ideas in order to report thoughts as they come up in mind, without a chronological order, without any organization: as a river flow, they only have a logical sequence.

Therefore time is subjective, it is the one in the inner side of the carachter. That’s why Joyce prefers the debunking force to the poetic expression. There’s now one of the highest example of flux of thought in Ulysses, Molly’s monologue:

“..... a quarter after what an unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China now combing out their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus theyve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or two for his night office the alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering the brains out of itself let me see if I can doze off 1 2 3 4 5 what kind of flowers are those they invented like the stars the wallpaper in Lombard street was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that something only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and try again so as I can get up early Ill go to Lambes there beside Findlaters and get them to send us some flowers to put about the place in case he brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no Fridays an unlucky day first I want to do the place up someway the dust grows in it I think while Im asleep then we can have music and cigarettes I can accompany him I must clean the keys of the piano with milk whatll I wear shall I wear a white rose or those fairy cakes in Liptons I love the smell of a rich big shop a 7½d a lb or the other ones with the cherries in them and the pinky sugar 11d a couple of lbs of course a nice plant for the middle of the table Id get that cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them not long ago I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the gowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows or the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and 0 that awful deepdown torrent 0 and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

Italiano: La coscienza di Zeno

Italo Svevo – Il volontario esilio da Dublino e il carisma di Joyce gli permisero di stringere una solida e sincera amicizia con uno degli esponenti dei più importanti circoli letterari triestini, Italo Svevo.

Questo non fu uno scrittore di professione; il successo gli giunse all’improvviso, quando, spinto dai consigli dell’amico Joyce

La coscienza di Zeno.

pubblicò