heart of darkness libro da leggere, Dispense di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica heart of darkness libro da leggere e più Dispense in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale Dipartimento di Scienze Umane, Sociali e della Salute Corso di Laurea in Lingue Moderne a. a. 2017-2018 Dott. Saverio Tomaiuolo Lingua e Traduzione – Lingua Inglese 3 (6 CFU) Heart of Darkness and Graphic Novels • Given the specific nature of Graphic novels, it is important to reflect on their peculiar “language” in order to understand eventual adaptations/intersemiotic translations. • In 1985 Will Eisner defined graphic novels as “sequential art” (Comics and Sequential Art, 1985)., and in truth their most important feature of graphic novels is that their narration is “sequential” although – unlike novels – we do not have necessarily to “read” images and texts from top to bottom and from left to right (as we do with written texts). • So texts (captions, balloons etc..) and images (both singular panels and splash pages) interact in a very complex way. • Graphic novels (like comic books) give the viewer/reader the opportunity to enjoy the pages as a whole, and then to select the reading itinerary. This is particularly true with graphic novels, which sometimes are based on “literary classics” (from Conan Doyle to James Joyce, from Jane Austen to Stroker and Dickens). • • Graphic novels= singular, artistic, adult/educated public • Vs • Comic books = serial, commercial/popular, not-necessarily educated public An unexpected “appropriation” of Conrad’s text has taken place in other peculiar textual contexts, such as the graphic novel. As regards Italy, for instance, almost (all of) Conrad’s works have influenced the series devoted to Corto Maltese by Hugo Pratt, in particular “Una Ballata del Mare Salato” (1967). • • In much more ironic tones, the cartoonist Andrea Pazienza (“Paz”) in his brief and hallucinate graphic novel entitled Giorno (published in n. 3 of the magazine Frigidaire on January 1981) describes his anti-hero Enrico Fiabeschi giving – and failing - his exam at DAMS on Apocalypse Now!!! As a matter of fact, Andrea Pazienza loved both Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now. • • • Andrea Pazienza has moreover drawn the opening page of the monthly Il Male n. 1, anno 3 (January 1980). The theme is the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. Apocalysky Da is the “Pazientian” version of Apocalypse Now. As regards her technique, Anyango writes: “I drew the pieces very small and very very delicate and then later blew them up and made them darker […] in a way to create a sensation […] of the increasingly fragmented mind of the protagonist as he travelled down the river; so the pencil itself was breaking up, creating patterns; you were seeing things that weren’t there perhaps in the mist and the fog” Anyango thus graphically reproduces Conrad’s “nebulous” images: [To] him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine (Heart of Darkness). In Conrad the four members of the crew – an accountant, a lawyer, the Director of the Company and the “frame narrator” – cannot begin a domino game because they are “captured” by Marlow’s tale. The first pages of the graphic novel open with a blurred image, that gradually takes the shape of a domino piece held by Marlow (who here is depicted as Joseph Conrad). This image is repeated in the first frames of the graphic novel, as if to enhance its importance Adaptation is a critical interpretation of a text, and that the very semiotic system that characterises each text (graphic novel, movie, music etc..) determines its form and expression. A Graphic novel can offers only a limited number of “baloons” and “written words” and has to use images instead. Take for instance the image of porters in the graphic novel, which conveys the magnitude of the trip (and of the African experience, even of the African COLONIAL EXPERIENCE) and the “microscopic” nature of the human beings who are involved: Here is another passage, which Anyango almost reproduces literally: After I changed my shoes, I dragged his body out and removed the spear. I carried his body close to mine. Oh, he was so heavy. Then without any fuss I dropped him overboard. The current carried him away like a blade of grass. His body rolled over twice before disappearing forever. All the agents and the manager were on the deck at the time, and some of them thought I was heartless for tossing his body over so quickly. I can’t imagine why they wanted to keep the body hanging around. Maybe they wanted to embalm it. […]. I had made up my mind that if the helmsman was going to be eaten, it would be by fish, not men. The presence of excepts and references to The Congo Diary is exemplified in one image, which portrays a seriously ill and tired Marlow (who is probably in bed, resting after one of his trips), who recounts his experiences. The image is accompanied by texts taken from the Congo Diary (and “typed” in a different way) in order to suggest a problematic association between Marlow and Conrad, Story and History, Fiction and Fact: : In another case we can see a conflation of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (describing the porters’ fatigue) and some sections of the Congo Diary, whose “difference” is enhanced through the use of a different “font”, which reminds of a diaristic writing.