Abstract

The article examines the self-reflective and metatextual nature of many of the authorial notes of Carlo Emilio Gadda’s collection L’Adalgisa. Disegni milanesi (1944), exploring how the notes interact with the main text. The notes of L’Adalgisa sometimes account for the time passed between the earlier writing of the main text and its later publication, and defend the author from his detractors. Other times, they provide a countermelody to the satire carried out in the main text, challenge the reliability of the narrative, and even mock the author’s style and expressive choices. Most of all, however, as the article argues, the notes create an effect of reverberation between the narrative and the historical-biographical experiences of Gadda, understood as the external author of the text