Coincidenze e strutture topiche della memoria. Il caso del pellegrinaggio sentimentale

Abstract

This article explores the role of coincidence in memory through literary topical structures. Coincidence is one of the most important elements of sentimental pilgrimage, a topos that is widely spread in European culture at the turn of the Twentieth century. The traveller returning to a place tends to overlap the present space and the one that belongs to his/her past. While he recovers the space he cannot help acknowledging the unredeemable loss of that particular time of his/her life. Proust’s intermittences of the heart work in a somewhat different way. À la recherche du temps perdu shows that it is possible for the mind to recover the time lost in an unrepeatable instant, albeit to the detriment of present reality.