Abstract

The article explores landscape representations in Carlo Emilio Gadda’s Meditazione milanese (1928; published posthumously in 1974). Through an in-depth textual analysis focusing on discursive and rhetorical aspects of Gadda’s descriptions of landscapes, the article sheds light on the role of landscape in Meditazione, as well as on the effects that landscape representations have on Gadda’s essayistic style on a more general level. The analysis shows how the combination of lyricism, narration and essayistic style that is typical of Meditazione does not undermine its argumentative incisiveness, but rather enhances it.