Lightning, lightning rods and thunderbolts: small catastrophes in Gadda

Abstract

In Gadda’s writing we may discern a sort of submerged obession with lightning (‘fulmine’) and/or thunderbolt (‘fólgore’) as manifestations – sometimes unashamedly comic, sometimes mournful – of catastrophe. This study collects and analyses some of these ‘catastrophic scenes’, investigates their different symbolic qualities (also in light of the different discursive contexts) and traces them back to one of the less visible perspectives of Gadda’s work: the Sublime.