Parenthetical clauses in Pavese´s prose

Abstract

The essay analyzes types and occurrences of parentheses and parenthetical clauses in four novels by Cesare Pavese: Paesi tuoi, Il compagno, Tra donne sole, La luna e i falò. Parentheses – tied equally to orality and literary tradition – fit either for deeping character psychology in a subjective lyrical manner or multiplying narrative planes and perspectives or even gaining syntactic stylization and phrasal texture fragmentation by the use of marked graphic introducers. By the examination of the types (primary parentheticals; parentheticals introducted by a dash; word and syntagm parentheses; didascalic parentheses; secondary parentheticals), it may be noted that parentheses in Pavese become an easy-to-handle and multipurpose syntactic tool, that frees the author’s mind from the worries of a naturalistic restitution of reality, and allows him – particularly after Il compagno – to reach the potential of autodiegetic narration, through a syntactic restitution that is fast, segmented, elliptical, yet not confusing, for it is unfolded and woven on the warp of a stylized orality and the weft of symmetries and parallelisms of firm classic mould.