The aim of this essay is to examine the narrative methods and expressive strategies by which comedy, irony and eroticism have become fundamental elements of Milan Kundera’s literary parable, which can already be seen in his debut novel The Joke, in which the author, in telling the story of four different yet complementary characters tries to reveal the unsuspected cohabitation of opposites, the humorist inherent in history, power and sexuality. Kundera recovers, in the wake of his great past masters – Rabelais, Cervantes, Diderot, Sterne – the playful essence of the narrative text to deeply rework not only the role of writing and comedy within the writing, but also the author’s own position towards society. For Kundera in fact, if the novel wishes to preserve its independence it cannot be limited to using the same tone triumphant in the very historical reality it is trying to unmask but rather has to overturn its vacuous dogmas.
Dottore di ricerca in Lingue, Letterature e Culture in contatto presso l’Università degli Studi “G. d’Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara, collabora con “The Vision” e con “Flanerí”, ha pubblicato articoli saggistici su “Diacritica”, “Frammenti Rivista”, “Nazione Indiana”, “Poetarum Silva”, “Culturificio”, “Antinomie”, “Sovrapposizioni”, “Limina”, “Kobo” (blog).
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