Memoria della Resistenza di Mario Spinella tra diarismo e autobiografia (primi accertamenti genetici)

The objective of this paper is an analysis of Memoria della Resistenza by Mario Spinella (Mondadori, Milano 1974) in its aspects as a “hybrid” text between diary and autobiography, which allow us to appreciate both a closed reading, attentive to its narratological and structural characteristics, and a reading oriented on the genetic level. These two “souls” are in fact in fruitful dialogue with each other: the peculiarities of the fictional or reconstructed diary are confirmed, at the compositional level, by the manuscript witness preserved at the Centro per gli Studi sulla Tradizione di Autori moderni e contemporanei, at the University of Pavia. After briefly tracing the editorial history of the text, we will therefore give an examination of the double temporality that innervates it – never separated from the particular characterization of the autobiographical character – on three main levels: 1) structural level (the paratext); 2) diegetic level (polyphony; use of verb tenses; exchange of hierarchies and “temporal anchors”); and 3) metadiegetic level. The hypothesis we derive about the author’s way of working will then be tested on the direct study of genetic materials, with initial findings on the differences between manuscript and printed text and their interpretation.