Book Section
Francesco Giusti
Gestural Communities
Lyric and the Suspension of Action
Memorability, shareability, and repeatability are interrelated characteristics often ascribed to lyric poetry in current theory, sometimes with an emphasis on the transnational potential of its circulation. This article approaches this question of shareability not in terms of diction or form, as is usually the case, but of gesture. Drawing on Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, and Giorgio Agamben, gesture is defined as both historically situated and transferable to different contexts, but whether or not to re-enact a particular gesture in one’s own context is a political decision. After examining how a sonnet by Andrea Zanzotto addresses the lyric gesture of exhortation offered by a Petrarch sonnet, the article goes on to explore the potentiality opened up for the formation of gestural communities by the suspension of action in the lyric.
Keywords: lyric; gesture; community; shareability; deixis; suspension; vocative
| Title |
Gestural Communities
|
| Subtitle |
Lyric and the Suspension of Action
|
| Author(s) |
Francesco Giusti
|
| Identifier | |
| Description |
Memorability, shareability, and repeatability are interrelated characteristics often ascribed to lyric poetry in current theory, sometimes with an emphasis on the transnational potential of its circulation. This article approaches this question of shareability not in terms of diction or form, as is usually the case, but of gesture. Drawing on Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, and Giorgio Agamben, gesture is defined as both historically situated and transferable to different contexts, but whether or not to re-enact a particular gesture in one’s own context is a political decision. After examining how a sonnet by Andrea Zanzotto addresses the lyric gesture of exhortation offered by a Petrarch sonnet, the article goes on to explore the potentiality opened up for the formation of gestural communities by the suspension of action in the lyric.
|
| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Berlin
|
| Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
|
| Date |
28 October 2024
|
| Subject |
lyric
gesture
community
shareability
deixis
suspension
vocative
|
| Rights |
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
|
| Language |
en-GB
|
| page start |
71
|
| page end |
96
|
| Source |
Rethinking Lyric Communities, ed. by Irene Fantappiè, Francesco Giusti, and Laura Scuriatti, Cultural Inquiry, 30 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2024), pp. 71–96
|
Publication scheduled for 28 October 2024
References
- Agamben, Giorgio, The Coming Community, trans. by Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993)
- Agamben, Giorgio, ‘Expropriated Manner’, in The End of the Poem: Studies in Poetics, trans. by Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), pp. 87–101 <https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804763912-008>
- Agamben, Giorgio, ‘Notes on Gesture’, in Means without End: Notes on Politics, trans. by Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. 49–61
- Agamben, Giorgio, The Kingdom and the Glory, trans. by Lorenzo Chiesa with Matteo Mandarini, in The Omnibus Homo Sacer (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017), pp. 361–641
- Agamben, Giorgio, The Use of Bodies, trans. by Adam Kotsko, in The Omnibus Homo Sacer (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017), pp. 1011–1288
- Agamben, Giorgio, ‘The Inappropriable’, in Creation and Anarchy: The Work of Art and the Religion of Capitalism, trans. by Adam Kotsko (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), pp. 29–50 <https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503609273-004>
- Agamben, Giorgio, ‘What Is a Command?’, in Creation and Anarchy: The Work of Art and the Religion of Capitalism, trans. by Adam Kotsko (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), pp. 51–65 <https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503609273-005>
- Agamben, Giorgio, ‘What Is the Act of Creation?’, in Creation and Anarchy: The Work of Art and the Religion of Capitalism, trans. by Adam Kotsko (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), pp. 14–28 <https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503609273-003>
- Agamben, Giorgio, La voce umana (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2023)
- Attridge, Derek, The Singularity of Literature (London: Routledge, 2004) <https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203420447>
- Attridge, Derek, The Work of Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) <https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733195.001.0001>
- Attridge, Derek, ‘Singularity’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (Oxford University Press, 2020) <https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.1092>
- Austin, John L., How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) <https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001>
- Benjamin, Walter, ‘Commentary on Poems by Brecht’, trans. by Edmund Jephcott, in Selected Writings, 4 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996–2003), IV: 1938–1940, ed. by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (2003), pp. 215–50
- Benjamin, Walter, ‘Notes from Svendborg, Summer 1934’, trans. by Rodney Livingstone, in Selected Writings, 4 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996–2003), II, part 2: 1931–1934, ed. by Michael W. Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith (2005), pp. 783–91
- Benjamin, Walter, ‘What Is Epic Theatre? (II)’, trans. by Harry Zohn, in Selected Writings, 4 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996–2003), IV: 1938–1940, ed. by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (2003), pp. 302–09
- Berlant, Lauren, Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011) <https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822394716>
- Blanchot, Maurice, The Unavowable Community, trans. by Pierre Joris (Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1988)
- Brecht, Bertolt, Gedichte, ed. by Elisabeth Hauptmann, 10 vols (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1960–76; Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1961–78), III: 1930–1933 (1961)
- Brecht, Bertolt, Werke: Große kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, ed. by Werner Hecht and others, 30 vols (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag; Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1988–97), XIV: Gedichte 4 (1993)
- Clemens, Justin, ‘The Role of the Shifter and the Problem of Reference in Giorgio Agamben’, in The Work of Giorgio Agamben: Law, Literature, Life, ed. by Justin Clemens, Nicholas Heron, and Alex Murray (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008), pp. 43–65 <https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748634637-006>
- Cortellessa, Andrea, Andrea Zanzotto: Il canto della terra (Bari: Laterza, 2021)
- Crick, Joyce, ‘Power and Powerlessness: Brecht’s Poems to Carola Neher’, German Life and Letters, 53.3 (2000), pp. 314–24
- Culler, Jonathan, ‘Apostrophe’, in The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 149–71
- Culler, Jonathan, Theory of the Lyric (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015) <https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674425781>
- Gardini, Nicola, ‘Zanzotto petrarchista barbaro: saggio sull’“Ipersonetto”’, Studi Novecenteschi, 19.43/44 (1992), pp. 223–34
- Giusti, Francesco, ‘Transcontextual Gestures: A Lyric Approach to the World of Literature’, in The Work of World Literature, ed. by Francesco Giusti and Benjamin Lewis Robinson (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2021), pp. 75–103 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-19_04>
- Giusti, Francesco, ‘Mourning Over her Image: The Re-enactment of Lyric Gestures in Giorgio Caproni’s “Versi livornesi”’, in A Gaping Wound: Mourning in Italian Poetry, ed. by Adele Bardazzi, Francesco Giusti, and Emanuela Tandello (Cambridge: Legenda, 2022), pp. 47–70 <https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv33b9pwp.7>
- Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004) <https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804767149>
- Haines, Christian, ‘A Lyric Intensity of Thought: On the Potentiality and Limits of Giorgio Agamben’s “Homo Sacer” Project’, Boundary2, 29 August 2016 <https://www.boundary2.org/2016/08/christian-haines-a-lyric-intensity-of-thought-on-the-potentiality-and-limits-of-giorgio-agambens-homo-sacer-project/> [accessed 11 February 2024]
- Jackson, Virginia, Before Modernism: Inventing American Lyric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023) <https://doi.org/10.23943/princeton/9780691232805.001.0001>
- Jameson, Fredric, Brecht and Method (London: Verso, 1999)
- Johnson, Barbara, ‘Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion’, Diacritics, 16.1 (1986), pp. 28–47 <https://doi.org/10.2307/464649>
- Keylin, Vadim, Participatory Sound Art: Technologies, Aesthetics, Politics (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore, 2023) <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6357-7>
- Lorenzini, Niva, Dire il silenzio: La poesia di Andrea Zanzotto (Rome: Carocci, 2014)
- Magro, Fabio, and Arnaldo Soldani, Il sonetto italiano: Dalle origini a oggi (Rome: Carocci, 2017)
- Manica, Raffaele, ‘Petrarca e Zanzotto’, in Qualcosa del passato: Saggi di lettura del Ventesimo Secolo (Rome: Gaffi, 2008), pp. 383–98
- Noland, Carrie, Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009) <https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674054387>
- Noland, Carrie, and Sally Ann Ness, eds, Migrations of Gesture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008)
- Petrarca, Francesco, Canzoniere, ed. by Marco Santagata (Milan: Mondadori, 1996)
- Ramazani, Jahan, A Transnational Poetics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009) <https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226703374.001.0001>
- Ramazani, Jahan, Poetry and its Others: News, Prayer, Song, and the Dialogue of Genres (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014) <https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226083421.001.0001>
- Ramazani, Jahan, Poetry in a Global Age (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2020) <https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226730288.001.0001>
- Scarpa, Raffaella, Forme del sonetto: La tradizione italiana e il Novecento (Rome: Carocci, 2012)
- Schuhmann, Klaus, Der Lyriker Bertolt Brecht 1913–1933 (Munich: dtv, 1971)
- Tassoni, Luigi, Caosmos: La poesia di Andrea Zanzotto (Rome: Carocci, 2002)
- Tiffany, Daniel, ‘Lyric Poetry and Poetics’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature (Oxford University Press, 2020) <https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.1111>
- Tiffany, Daniel, My Silver Planet: A Secret History of Poetry and Kitsch (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) <https://doi.org/10.1353/book.28577>
- Tucker, Herbert, ‘Dramatic Monologue and the Overhearing of Lyric’, in Lyric Poetry: Beyond New Criticism, ed. by Chaviva Hošek and Patricia Parker (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 226–46
- Vendler, Helen, Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology (Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1997)
- Villalta, Gian Mario, La costanza del vocativo. Lettura della ‘trilogia’ di Andrea Zanzotto: ‘Il Galateo in Bosco’, ‘Fosfeni’, ‘Idioma’ (Milan: Guerini, 1992)
- Waters, William, Poetry’s Touch: On Lyric Address (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003) <https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501717062>
- Weber, Samuel, Benjamin’s -abilities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008) <https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674033955>
- Welle, John P., ‘ Il Galateo in bosco and the Petrarchism of Andrea Zanzotto’, Italica, 62.1 (1985), pp. 41–53
- Zanzotto, Andrea, Le poesie e prose scelte, ed. by Stefano Dal Bianco and Gian Mario Villalta (Milan: Mondadori, 1999)
- Zanzotto, Andrea, Tutte le poesie, ed. by Stefano Dal Bianco (Milan: Mondadori, 2011)
- Zanzotto, Andrea, Ipersonetto: Guida alla lettura, ed. by Luigi Tassoni (Rome: Carocci, 2021)
- de Man, Paul, ‘Lyrical Voice in Contemporary Theory’, in Lyric Poetry: Beyond New Criticism, ed. by Chaviva Hošek and Patricia Parker (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 55–72
Cite as:
Francesco Giusti, ‘Gestural Communities: Lyric and the Suspension of Action’, in Rethinking Lyric Communities, ed. by Irene Fantappiè, Francesco Giusti, and Laura Scuriatti, Cultural Inquiry, 30 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2024), pp. 71-96 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-30_03>