Quando le emozioni del lettore entrano a far parte della trama del romanzo. Riflessioni su un episodio di 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' di James Joyce

In this essay, which takes as its starting point Anja Müller-Wood’s study The Role of the Emotions in Literary Communication: Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, I analyze the role of the reader’s emotions in the narrative construction of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. While in her study Anja Müller-Wood showed how Joyce’s novel emotionally mobilizes the reader, the present essay aims to show how, in certain cases, the reader’s emotions do not merely constitute a response to the text, but themselves become a structural element of the plot. Through a comparison with a traditional narrative model such as the episode of the Unnamed’s conversion in The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) by Alessandro Manzoni—where the narrator explicitly describes the emergence, development, and resolution of the characters’ emotions—the essay shows how Joyce instead adopts a narrative technique based on informational gaps, perceptual limitations, and emotional incompleteness. The analysis focuses on the episode of the corporal punishment inflicted on Stephen Dedalus at Clongowes College, narrated in the first chapter, and on the coda to this episode narrated in the second chapter. While the episode in the first chapter recounts the unjust punishment that Father Dolan, the prefect of studies, inflicts on Stephen, Stephen’s subsequent complaint to the rector, and the rector’s promise that Father Dolan would never punish him again—a promise that leaves Stephen “free and happy”—the coda of this episode in the second chapter recounts the conversation between Stephen and his father, in which the latter reveals that the rector did not keep his promise. Since the narrator does not describe many of the emotional consequences that the episode has for Stephen, it falls to the reader to reconstruct them on the basis of his own personal experience and knowledge. The essay shows that the continuity between the episode narrated in the first chapter and its coda narrated in the second chapter is constructed precisely through the reader’s emotions. The skepticism and distrust that the reader already experiences in response to the rector’s promise constitute an emotional trace that is reactivated in the coda narrated in the second chapter, when the rector proves unreliable. In this way, the reader’s emotions do not merely represent a response to the narrative, but become the very principle that connects and narratively organizes the different scenes of the episode. (Abstract Italian) In questo saggio, che prende le mosse dallo studio di Anja Müller-Wood The role of the emotions in literary communication: Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, analizzo il ruolo delle emozioni del lettore nella costruzione narrativa di A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man di James Joyce. Se nel suo studio, Anja Müller-Wood mostrava come il romanzo di Joyce mobiliti emotivamente il lettore, il presente saggio intende mostrare come, in alcuni casi, le emozioni del lettore non costituiscano soltanto una risposta al testo, ma diventino esse stesse un elemento strutturale della trama. Attraverso il confronto con un modello narrativo tradizionale come l’episodio della conversione dell’Innominato ne I Promessi Sposi di Alessandro Manzoni, dove il narratore descrive in modo esplicito il sorgere, lo sviluppo e il risolversi delle emozioni dei personaggi, il saggio mostra come Joyce adotti invece una tecnica narrativa fondata su lacune informative, limitazioni percettive e incompletezza emotiva. L’analisi si concentra sull’episodio della punizione corporale inflitta a Stephen Dedalus nel collegio di Clongowes, raccontato nel primo capitolo, e sulla coda di quest’episodio raccontata nel secondo capitolo. Mentre l’episodio nel primo capitolo narra dell’ingiusta punizione che padre Dolan, il prefetto agli studi, infligge a Stephen, delle conseguenti