From August to November by Camillo Boito. On the Latent Library of Storielle vane

Abstract

This article examines the novella Dall’agosto al novembre by Camillo Boito, which contains the author’s most significant reflection on the theme of vanitas developed within his creative work (Storielle vane, 1876, and Senso. Nuove storielle vane, 1883). The analysis focuses on the landscape descriptions, on the dense network of intertextual relations and the rich latent library connected to them, and, finally, on the use of the notebook device, which invites the reader to question the reliability of the first-person narration. The initial description of Lake Maggiore makes it possible to situate the choice of the novella’s setting – unique within Boito’s narrative production – within a broad nineteenth-century pictorial and literary horizon. At the same time, the use of the personal notebook allows for an assessment of the problematic construction of the narrative self and of its strategies of self-representation. Lastly, the article considers the protagonist’s pseudo-philosophical dialogues and, in particular, the references to the Goethe-Schiller correspondence and to Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, including the textual variants that marked the transition from the periodical version of the novella to the volume edition. What emerges is a library of major classics and of authors close to the Romantic milieu, which the protagonist ostentatiously displays and appropriates in a reductive and partial manner. The reader is thus invited to reflect on the use of these sources and on their actual function within the Storielle vane, both in relation to Boito’s poetics and to the theme of vanity. Dall’agosto al novembre thus stands as a crucial hinge within the entire collection of novellas and as a particularly representative example of the modus scribendi that unites them.