2006 / 13 Prospero. Rivista di Letterature Straniere, Comparatistica e Studi Culturali

It is acknowledged that Morand’s fame as a writer of novellas surpasses that as a novelist. J.Le Carme argues for an inversion of such point of view. Morand’s novels attest to his authorial constant search for new expressive and narrative techniques. The trend towards a lack of closure and the creation of unprecedented images through the use of similitude are features common to other great authors of the age. "Champions du Monde" (1930) displays a picture of the rise of the United States in the course of the Twenty-First Century and of the contemporaneous decline of France, a symbol of old Europe, with illuminated foresight.

The article presents some analogies between Marguerite Yourcenar and Paul Morand, both attracted by the decadent beauty of Venice, which the two intellectuals consider as the symbol of the whole agonising Europe. Bounded by a subtle and resilient thread, the two authors evade from a disappointing and stifling present evoking an imperfect past which allows them to give sense to life.

The article analyses the Italian reception of Morand’s work, dwelling especially on translations and journalism. The most relevant among these are the pages devoted to Tomasi di Lampedusa and to a translation by the young Michelangelo Antonioni, the great film director, written at the end of the second World War.

Morand’s first novellas, collected in "Tendres Stock" (1921), "Ouvert la nuit" (1922) e "Fermé la nuit" (1923), attest the evolution of the genre since the beginning of the twentieth century. Its modernity consists in a transgressive insertion of different features from other genres. The poetic element is the most conspicuous novelty: the anecdote of the novella almost becomes a pretext, and other theatrical and cinematic features are borrowed, such as, respectively, numerous dialogues and impressions of rapid movement. On the whole, these texts display a slippage from diegesis to mimesis, presented through the interpretive filter of the subject.

It is possible to identify in Morand's imagination a cosmopolitan sentimental geography where Portugal has a significant, albeit not relevant role. The portuguese matter is present in different texts, among which the novellas 'Lorenzaccio ou le retour du proscrit' (1925), 'Le prisonnier de Cintra' (1958) and the novels "Tais-toi" (1965) and "Bains de mer, bains de rêve" (1960). What actually connects these fictions is the figure of Larbaud, who died in 1956, and whom Morand had always admired and decided to pay tribute to with some pages written in Lisbon in 1957. The reference to the poet can be identified in the textual isotopies of immobility and closeness.

The article proposes an interesting interpretation of Paul Morand’s novella “Lorenzaccio ou le retour du proscrit”, by establishing a parallelism between the fictional character of Tarquinio Gonçalvès and the historical Manuel Teixeira Gomez through an intricate game of hidden identities. Unconventional dandies fond of Greek and Latin culture, unexperienced poets and politicians, both characters become devices for a deeper reflection on human villainy.

Paul Morand never concealed a certain nostalgia for the Belle Époque and its rituals, its sense of hierarchies, its good manners, faith in progress, as well as a faith in the superiority of the white race. However, the outbreak of the First World War not only put an end to that society, but also disclosed deep cracklines in the European spirit, until then considered by Morand, among others, as the repository of reason. Thus Europe and the European people , much like many of Morand’s characters, become clinical cases. Starting from the author’s interest in psychiatry and psychoanalysis during the first war, the article aims to focus on their role in order to illuminate not only some of Morand’s characters, but his whole output.

The oeuvre of Paul Morand has experienced a new wave of re-readings in the world of French criticism, while in Italy it remains rather unexplored, although publishing houses have demonstrated a growing interest in recent years. The current issue of “Prospero” gathers the contributions originating from the Conference “Paul Morand letterato e viaggiatore” held in Trieste in March 2006 and organised by the University of Trieste. Morand was a Modern man who disliked modernity, a voyager who did not want to abandon the idea of borders, a man who loved order and whose intellectual curiosity concealed a deep existential instability. The contributions develop different topics and themes, enabling the in-depth study of interesting questions. The issue wants thus to take a first step in the Italian re-discovery of a subject that will certainly be the matter for further research.

Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere è una rivista annuale a stampa e online ad accesso aperto del Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell’Università di Trieste (DiSU), pubblicata dal 1994 presso la casa editrice EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste. È apparsa in precedenza con il complemento di titolo Rivista di letterature e civiltà Anglo-germaniche e, dal 2005 al 2011, con quello di Rivista di Letterature straniere, Comparatistica e Studi culturali. La rivista pubblica contributi originali dedicati alle letterature di lingua inglese, tedesca e francese. Prospero ospita contributi inediti di studiosi italiani e stranieri che pongono il testo letterario e l’analisi testuale al centro di più ampie riflessioni di carattere ermeneutico, filologico e storico-culturale. In particolare, si apre alle convergenze di carattere interdisciplinare e transdisciplinare tra la letteratura e gli altri saperi. Numeri monografici curati da guest editors italiani e stranieri su temi specifici si alternano a numeri miscellanei.

The article purports to examine Paul Morand’s diplomatic activity, a frequently neglected but essential aspect to understand the writer’s personality and his work in his many contradictions. After considering the pages of "Journal d'un attaché d'Ambassad 1916-1917", published in 1948, in which Morand nostalgically remembers the last moments of what he had defined as the Europe Galante, the article dwells on the possible reasons that lead him to support, in his diplomat’s capacity, first the Munich’s treaties and the Vichy régime.

The article questions the paradox that animates Paul Morand’s work: a great traveller, albeit persuaded that “the earth is incredibly small”, the writer seems to enact a “diplomatic occupation of space”. At the root of his traveller’s personality lies the impossibility to confront alterity without remaining anchored to his own identity, his culture, and, eventually, his own bias.