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ALBERTO CASADEI, Poetry and Fiction: A Necessary, Historically Verifiable, Combination

To assign a univocal meaning to the concept of ‘event’ is diffi-
cult, since it is connoted differently in different disciplines, from lin-
guistics to philosophy, from law to physics. For our purposes, some
shared traits are especially relevant, namely:
a. an event introduces a variation in the time continuum, one that
can be considered a break or a modification of a state;
b. it is not static and absolute, as a fact would be, but it implies
an interaction with the subjects who perceive it;
c. it does not depend on the logical-linguistic classification, given
that even infants seem able to recognize significant variations
in their field of perception;
d. it can be communicated and/or narrated in different but
equally acceptable ways. 26
Rather than the possible implications of the concept in various
philosophical systems (Heidegger, Badiou, Deleuze: see note 26), it is
important to focus on those relating to how the human being perceives
the concept of ‘event’: in its interaction with the outside world and es-
pecially its Umwelt, each individual may come across discontinuity
factors that, in the linguistic development, may initially be indicated
with single words (rain, sunrise, earthquake, etc.), and later with more
and more complex phrases. When the perceived events are considered
worthy of communication and connoted with qualifying markers
(style) one enters the field of eventfulness: a field that has recently been
27
researched within narratology. Here we consider it specifically in re-
lation to the possibility of representing an event to be reported in itself
and in its implications.
After this necessary clarification, we will try to highlight the link
that literary works establish between an event, as sense nucleus de-
rived from an experience and from its cerebral-corporeal reworking,

26 On the various recent philosophical conceptions of the event, see, e.g.,
Jonathan Benne , Events and Their Names (Indianapolis: Hacke , 1988).
27 See in particular the essays in The Living Handbook of Narratology, especially
that by Peter Hühn, Event and Eventfulness; see also, in general, Ralf Schneider
and Marcus Hartner, eds., Blending and the Study of Narrative. Approaches and
Applications (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter, 2012).

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