Abstract

In this essay I trace, first, through Hesiod’s Theogony and Boccaccio’s Genealogie, the genealogy of oblio, oblivion. The mostly negative connotations of the word – and of the actual physical state it describes – are constant through the Middle Ages (witness John of Salisbury) down to Shakespeare, yet lethe has from the very beginning something in common with poetry and truth (a-letheia). The struggle between oblivion and memory (as exemplified in the terzine beginning with «Qual è colui che sognando vede») dominates Dante’s account in Paradiso XXXIII, but at one point in the canto he talks of letargo («Un punto solo m’è maggior letargo»), and seemingly with a positive connotation. I go back to the sources Dante employs here and pick up precise definitions by Hugutio of Pisa. Quoting Mallarmé, I show how «lethargy» evokes Argo the mythical ship, and Argo the constellation. The conclusion is with T.S. Eliot’s final lines in Four Quartets