Genesis Bologna 2024

Constants and Variants

in Genetic Criticism

University of Bologna, Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies

Co-organised by the Department of Humanistic Studies o di Studi Umanistici (University of Ferrara) Ariostea Library (Ferrara) /DH.arc (University of Bologna) ITEM (CNRS, Paris)

9-11 May 2024

Aula Pascoli, Via Zamboni 32, Via Andreatta, 8, University of Bologna-Ariostea Library, Ferrara

Introduction

When, in 1937, Gianfranco Contini travelled to Paris to meet Valéry, right in the middle of the International Exhibition that had presented the masterpieces of French literature in the magnificence of the exhibition Preliminaries to a Museum of Literature (Valéry-Caen), along with the birth of variant criticism, the perception of the text changed, as it was no longer considered a fixed object, but a process. From this moment on, in the European culture that had laid the foundations of a ‘fixed’ tradition, where the variation of the author’s different wills had been balanced by the stability of the press, and the dogma of the author’s last will, variation, mouvance (Zumthor), and a plural idea of the author’s will (Rico) come into play. The text is conceived not as a synchronic point of arrival, but as a “diachrony, constituted by a sum of synchronies” (Segre), in which each station along the way is endowed with poetic value (Contini). But there is more. Thanks to the fruitful encounter with Saussure’s structural linguistics, the movements of the text are inserted into a system, in which the variants are within an individual pattern, for each author, and where the modes of material correction interact with those of linguistic correction. The aim of criticism, therefore, is to include in the characterizing description that defines an author’s ‘style’, the detection of the ‘constants in the variants’.

The “Genesis” 2024 meeting dedicated to Constants and Variants in Genetic Criticism therefore intends to document and discuss the alternation between the elements of the “author” system, and the “language” system, that vary incessantly, and those that show similarities, constants, leading to the identification, for each author, or groups of authors, of a “style”. Genetic criticism reveals itself, in this perspective, to be a discipline encompassing philology and criticism, whose objective is not only to represent the process, but to interpret it, and a trans-media discipline, because such an approach does not only concern the genesis of manuscript and printed texts, but of all the products of genius that have had a genesis and evolution, from the most traditional (poetic texts, short stories, novels, essays, theatrical texts) to those that have innovated literary genres (screenplays, storyboards, graphic novels, narrative nonfiction, without neglecting the visual arts).

In the transition of the last three decades, from the manual/mechanical production of texts, to a purely mechanical production, where the entire workflow, from design to printing and dissemination takes place on a digital medium, where the identity of the author is challenged by the multiple identities of a collaborative and social author (Shillingsburg), corrections have not disappeared, but proliferate in a rhizomatic multiplicity of variants, all traceable and memorable (Kirschenbaum), the challenge for criticism is still to study the fascinating interweaving of constants and variants. The concept of fluid text, of ‘text in time’ (Buzzoni), introduced into 20th century culture by Genetic Criticism, proves to be the most productive for investigating the mechanisms of creation, whether on the white sheet of paper or on the black screen.

Programme


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BOLOGNA SESSION (Sala Manfredi dell'Accademia delle Scienze, Via Zamboni 31)

5.30 PM - 6.15 PM

Special event: Lectio Magistralis

Lina Bolzoni (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa): Variants of Ariosto’s Illustrations (Galassia Ariosto)

BOLOGNA SESSION (Aula Pascoli, Via Zamboni, 32)

8.45 AM – 9.00 AM

Registration and Coffee

9.00 AM – 9.15 AM

Welcome Paola Italia (University of Bologna) and Nathalie Ferrand (ITEM, Paris)

9.15 AM – 10.00 AM

Lectio Magistralis

Louis Hay (ITEM) Qu’est-ce que la critique génétique?

10.00 AM – 10.45 AM

Theoretical issues in genetic criticism

Key Note 1 João Dionísio (University of Lisbon) Beyond 1X2 and the lexical model: author’s libraries and exogenetics


10.45 AM - 11.45 AM

1. The invention of the Authorial Gesture: Enlightenment and Romanticism

  1. Nathalie Ferrand, Genèse d’une correspondance d’écrivain: constantes et variantes dans les brouillons épistolaires de Jean-Jacques Rousseau [fr]
  2. Federica Maria Giallombardo, Chi tanto te onorò con degne carte. L’ultima epistola (non) alfieriana [ita]
  3. Alessandro Vuozzo, Due paure, un Timore: a proposito di una variante genetica dell’Etruria vendicata e di alcune costanti del pensiero politico di Alfieri [ita]
  1. Massimo Castoldi, Dall’edizione critica di Myricae alle copie di lavoro: cinquant’anni di filologia pascoliana [ita]
  2. Leyla M.G. Livraghi, Alexandros di Giovanni Pascoli - scartafacci, fasi redazionali e fonti [ita]
  3. Tânia Furtado Moreira, The Challenges of Editing O que Fazem Mulheres by Camilo Castelo Branco [en]
  1. Milena Giuffrida, Le due «divine facoltà»: fantasia e immaginazione ne Il marchese di Roccaverdina [ita]
  2. Beatrice Nava, «Un cuor che agogna sol d’esser ben noto»: genesi del personaggio Carmagnola [ita]
  3. Daniela Shalom Vagata, Da un Inno a tre Inni: costanti e varianti nel mito poetico dell’Inno alle Grazie di Ugo Foscolo [ita]
  1. Sandra Cristina de Jesus Bôto, An approach to digital textual genetics: from Almeida Garrett's romantic ballad to a traditional ballad archetype [en] Online
  2. Franz Fischer, Claus Zittel, Daniele Fusi, Matteo Zupancic, Goethe’s Venezianische Epigramme. A Critical Digital Edition [en]
  3. Matteo Zibardi, Using MEDITE to understand patterns of textual variants: the case study of Balzac’s La Vendetta [en]
  1. Ágnes Kelevéz, Le message changeant des notes marginales dans les éditions de Mihály Babits [fr] Online
  2. Panagiotis Markou, Collecting and Incorporating Exogenetic Material into Fiction: Giorgos Seferis’s Duping of Reality in Six Nights on the Acropoli [en]
  3. Yi Peng, Variants and Varieties: The Case of The Philosophical Investigations [en]
  1. Chiara Montini, Il Philippe, Filippo, Filippe, Philippe di Alfieri: varianti e costanti [ita]
  2. Fabio Ramasso, Il mito come fondamento di una critica genetica. Il lavoro ermeneutico in Medea. Voci di Christa Wolf e Materiali per Medea di Heiner Müller [ita]
  3. Elisabetta Tonello, Finzione e menzogna. Per uno studio del tema del doppio nella Tosca di Illica, Giacosa e Puccini attraverso l’edizione genetica del libretto [ita]
  1. Mattia Cravero, Filologia della metamorfosi. Primo Levi e il Re dei Giudei da «La Stampa» a I sommersi e i salvati [ita]
  2. Cynthia Gabbay, The Sacred Life of a Manuscript in Jewish Translation: from Genizah during the Shoah to Recovery through a Studying Hevruta [en] Online
  3. Alice Gardoncini, Tre rifrazioni di Se questo è un uomo in Germania [ita]

11.45 AM – 12.00 PM

Coffee Break

12.00 PM – 1.00 PM

2. The “short century” between constants and variants

  1. Andrea Comboni, Da Un fulmine sul 220 a L’Adalgisa: costanti variantistiche gaddiane [ita]
  2. Luca Mazzocchi, L’autore autoptico: sulle note dell’Adalgisa di C.E. Gadda [ita]
  3. Filippo Pelacci, Costanti nelle varianti: metodologie correttorie nell’incompiuta Meditazione milanese di Carlo Emilio Gadda [ita]
  1. Akimova Marina, Les carnets de Vladimir Nabokov et sa techinque du vers [en]
  2. Kostis Pavlou, Solomos’s virtual library, or constants and variants in a multilingual poet’s note-taking practices [en]
  3. Gabriele Wix, The Genesis of an Author‘s Style: Thomas Kling, for example [en] Online
  1. Patrick Hersant, “Ask Bonnefoy”: a poet and his translator conversing on the drafts [en] Online
  2. Anna Saroldi, The Multilingual Genesis of Peter Robinson’s Creative Process [en] Online
  3. Zoltán Szénási, Exogenetic dimensions: Variants of intertextuality in the genetic dossiers of Mihály Babits' poems [en]
  1. Agnieszka Kuniczuk, Between literary mutability and censorial constancy: Eliza Orzeszkowa's Gloria Victis series [en]
  2. Pascale Sardin, Constants and variants in the failed co(py)editing of Marguerite Duras’s Ten-Thirty One Summer Night and The Afternoon of Monsieur Andesmas (Grove Press, New York and John Calder, London 1962-1966) [en]
  3. Jason Wiens, Revision and Collective Authorship in Alice Munro’s Hold Me Fast, Don’t Let Me Pass [en]
  1. Martina Mengoni, From the German correspondence to Vanadio: genesis and epistolary antecedents of a story by Primo Levi [en]
  2. Paweł Rodak, Constants and variants in Witold Gombrowicz's Diary [en]
  3. Jagoda Zarzycka, Archives d’Anna Kamieńska : Constantes et Variantes dans la Genèse du Notatnik (Carnet de notes) [fr]
  1. Carlotta Defenu, Did Fernando Pessoa Write Standing, Sitting, or Walking? [en]
  2. Teresa Filipe, Fernando Pessoa’s Paradise Lost: a loose sheet from the archive [en]
  3. Pedro Sepúlveda, Fernando Pessoa’s objectifying variants [en]
  1. Miryam Grasso, Genesi e scrittura dei romanzi di Cesare Pavese. Il caso de “La luna e i falò” [ita]
  2. Angela Siciliano, La rivolta contro i “padri” di Bassani: in cerca di uno stile personale [ita]
  3. Monica Zanardo, Nei meandri compositivi del “Porto di Toledo” di Anna Maria Ortese [ita]

1.00 PM - 2.30 PM

Lunch Break (Via Andreatta 8)

2.30 PM – 3.15 PM

Key Note 2 Giulia Raboni (University of Parma) Constructing and using genetic apparatuses. The case of Manzoni’s “Promessi sposi”

3.15 PM - 4.15 PM

3. The “short century” between constants and variants

  1. Dino Manca, Il laboratorio di scrittura di Grazia Deledda. Critica delle varianti e diacronie linguistiche [ita]
  2. Elena Niccolai, Questo resterà di tutto quello che vedi: / uno schema di foglia e una coppa di ghianda: alcune note per il commento di Questo muro di Franco Fortini [ita]
  3. Chiara Ferrara, Effetti d’un sogno interrotto: uno specimen per uno studio genetico sulla narrativa breve dell’ultimo Pirandello [ita] Online
  4. Francesco Venturi, “Dentro, nella pentola”. Attraverso i materiali genetici di Corporale e Sipario ducale di Paolo Volponi [ita]
  1. Giuliana Di Febo-Severo, Supporti del poeta-traduttore: i volumi francesi nella biblioteca di Vittorio Sereni [ita]
  2. Guido Mazza, Un progetto / sempre in divenire». Le varianti della prosa di Vittorio Sereni [ita]
  3. Riccardo Sturaro, Costanti e varianti nei brogliacci dell’ultimo Luzi: studio genetico di Non perderti, non allontanarti dal pensiero [ita]
  1. Iga Adamczyk, MA, Encoding Variants in Scholarly Digital Editions Using the TEI Standard: Challenges and Possibilities in Creation, Visualization, and Analysis [en]
  2. Floor Buschenhenke, Writing constellations: comparing the work processes of eleven comtemporary authors [en]
  3. Veijo Pulkkinen, The precompositional phase of Kalle Päätalo’s born-digital writing process [en]
  1. Hans Walter Gabler, Ulysses, Sirens [en]
  2. Mateusz Antoniuk, Is there avant-texte in this text? Genetic criticism and the paradoxes of intertextuality and interpretation [en]
  3. Roger Lüdeke, A Birth of Bloom: Joyce’s “Sirens” Drafts [en]
  1. Rosy Cupo, Problemi ecdotici delle redazioni editoriali di Belmoro di Corrado Alvaro [ita]
  2. Antonio D’Ambrosio, Costanti, varianti, interferenze: stili e strutture nella poesia di Giuseppe Ungaretti [ita]
  3. Tiziana Mancinelli, Un’analisi variantistica del lungo poema in versi La camera da letto di Attilio Bertolucci [ita]
  4. Lorenzo Morviducci, La filologia d’autore tra sistema e analisi delle varianti: il caso di Dietro il paesaggio di Andrea Zanzotto [ita] Online
  1. Sakari Katajamäki, Style in the Making: Changes in Alliteration in the Writing Process of “The Herd Girl” [en]
  2. Wojciech Kruszewski, Exploring the Significance of Concluding Phrases in Polish Poetry: A Study of Anna Kamieńska and Małgorzata Lebda’s Works [en]
  3. Ariadne Nunes, Uncovering and covering up - Counselor Ayre's language in Machado de Assis' autographs [en]
  1. Christine Hartmann, Constants, variants, and transformations in Saint-John Perse’s manuscripts [en]
  2. Kiyoko Myojo, Can genetic criticism account for the creative role of editing? The case of Kafka's The Castle [en]
  3. Benedetta Zaccarello, L’“opera variante” in Paul Valéry e Aurobindo Ghose [ita]

4.15 PM – 4.45 PM

Coffee Break

4.45 PM – 5.45 PM

4. Transmediality in Variants and Theory of Texts

4.1 Transmediality in Variants

  1. Erica Andreose, Giorgia Crosilla, Leonardo Zilli, Metascript: a framework proposal for screenplay encoding [en]
  2. Marcin Czerwiński, Social media as a reflection of the creative work of Polish poets of younger generations on the example of Konrad Góra's posts [en]
  3. Serenella Zanotti, Film translations as texts in motion: Stanley Kubrick and the making of the foreign language versions of A Clockwork Orange [en]
  1. Solène Audebert-Poulet, Writing a children's book: between verbal and iconic language [fr]
  2. Nadia Podzemskaia, Sulla variazione degli elementi materiali nell’arte astratta [ita]
  3. Michele Russo, Il concetto di “variante” nella Critica genetica e la sua ricezione musicale [ita]

4.2 Theory of texts

  1. Olga Anokhina, L’autotraduction: un nouvel état génétique d’une œuvre ou la création circulaire [fr] Online
  2. Dorota Masłej, The process of creating a text in the Middle Ages in the context of bilingualism of the author [en]
  3. Giuseppe Sofo, La traduzione come “variante costante” del testo Leggere la genetica della traduzione attraverso gli archivi di Derek Walcott e Janheinz Jahn [ita] Online
  1. Giancarlos Nathanael Peralta Luis, Unstable, established and destabilized texts: a theoretical-methodological proposal for the rhizomatic approach to genetic criticism [en]
  2. Elena Spadini, Reading the genesis without texts: an ontology for genetic networks [en] Online
  3. Katerina Tiktopoulou, Eleni Petridou, Interpretation and representation of textual variation: the "analytical method" [en]
  1. Dovil ė Gervytė, Vilnius University, Geneticist’s Instinct, or What to Do with All Those Changes [en]
  2. Michal Kosák, Connecting genetic criticism to textology [en]
  3. Hana Kosáková, Russian Formalism in the Context of Genetic Criticism [en]

5.45 PM – 6.30 PM

Key Note 3 Kathryn Sutherland (St. Anne’s College, Oxford) What Matters in Genetic Criticism?

6.30 PM - 6.45 PM

Discussion

FERRARA SESSION (Ariostea Library, Sala Agnelli, via Scienze, 17, Ferrara)

9.00 AM - 9.45 AM

Welcome Valentina Gritti (University of Ferrara) and Mirna Bonazza (Ariostea Library) Ariosto’s Manuscript Exibition (Ariostea Library - Agnelli Room)

9.45 AM - 10.30 AM

Key Note 4 John Bryant (Hofstra University) Melville, Woolf, and Biography: Versions of Adaptive Revision

Chair: Valentina Gritti (University of Ferrara)

10.30 AM - 10.45 AM

Coffee Break and Transfer to Humanities Studies Department University of Ferrara

10.45 AM - 11.45 AM

5. Pre Modern Variants: Authorial will and Traditions

  1. Franz Johansson, «A genetic approach to a collection of Renaissance manuscripts: From the ‘Primeros Memoriales’ (1558) to the Florentine Codex (1585)» [en]
  2. Giulia Perucchi, Nuovi laboratori di ricerca su vecchi problemi: filologia d’autore e filologia digitale verso l’edizione del De remediis utriusque fortune [ita]
  3. Dirk Van Hulle and Mark Nixon, ‘all the variants of the one’: Beckett, Dante, Ariosto and the Ferrara School [en]
  1. Valerio Cellai, Varianti nella rappresentazione di testi teatrali del Rinascimento [ita]
  2. Valentina Gritti, Nel laboratorio ariostesco: l’avantesto del Furioso 1532 tra autografi, apografi e frammenti a stampa [ita]
  3. Beatrice Mosca, La filologia d’autore nel ’600: Gli abbozzi amorosi de’ stile petrarchesco d’Alfonso Gioia [ita]
  4. Anna Terroni, Tra performance e lettura: Gli Oltraggi d'amore e di fortuna di Alessandro Donzellini [ita]
  1. Łukasz Cybulski, Multiauthorial, Multispatial Textual Genesis in the Early Modern Period [en]
  2. Fabio Jermini, Varianti adiafore, raffazzonamenti e riscritture nella tradizione dei sonetti di Cecco Angiolieri [ita]
  3. Tomasz Mika, A medieval text in motion. Ways of interweaving constants and variables in Polish translations of the Rule of St Francis [en]
  4. Diana Perego, Il mito di Ikarios: costanti e varianti [ita] Online
  1. Irene Cappelletti, «Per inquadrarlo, nonostante la portata geniale…»: Petrarca e/in Contini alla prova del sistema [ita]
  2. Laura Costanza, Tasso legge Platone: costanti e varianti nelle postille al Simposio e al Commentarium in Convivium [ita]
  3. Federico Diamanti, La “doppia redazione” del De Voluntario et involuntario di Teodoro Gaza: addenda, varianti e sviluppo del testo in un caso di filologia d’autore dell’Umanesimo greco [ita]
  4. Antonio Di Silvestro, Alessandro Zammataro, Costanti e varianti nella tradizione esegetica umanistica e rinascimentale dei Trionfi di Petrarca [ita]

12 PM - 12.45 PM

Key Note 5 Daniel Ferrer (ITEM, Paris)

12.45 PM - 1.00 PM

Closing Ferrara Session + announcement of next Genesis conference (Ariostea Library, Sala Agnelli, via Scienze, 17, Ferrara)


3.00 PM

Extra event by reservation: Guided tour of Ariosto House and Bassani Foundation (Giorgio Bassani Library and Manuscripts), via Ariosto 67, Ferrara.

Speakers


Lectio Magistralis

João Dionísio

Louis Hay

Giulia Raboni

Kathryn Sutherland


Lectio Magistralis

John Bryant

Daniel Ferrer

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