Zeno Cosini

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Title of the second edition from 1930

Zeno Cosini is the tragicomic antihero and one of the German titles of the novel La coscienza di Zeno [la koˈʃɛntsa di ˈdzɛːno] written by Italo Svevo in 1923 (ambiguous in the translation “Zeno's consciousness” or “Zeno's conscience”); The setting is Svevo's hometown Trieste , which at that time belonged to Austria-Hungary , in the years before the First World War and, in the last part, in 1915/16.

Framework story

On the advice of his psychoanalyst, known as "Doctor S.", the 57-year-old first-person narrator, who feels sick about his surroundings, has written down his life story. The result is a self-deprecating narrative in which the protagonist always finds a comic side to the unfortunate events. "The idle hypochondriac Zeno [is the] model image of the anti-hero , burning mirror of the most banal experiences and feelings, the embodiment of talkative resignation [...]". Doctor S. published this story out of revenge because the patient ended the therapy. The last chapter consists of diary entries from May 1915 and the last from March 24, 1916.

The history

Zeno is a perpetual student who tries different subjects and activities, gets nothing done and lives on the money of his father, a successful entrepreneur. Constantly only concerned with himself, he has become unfit for life. He does not believe in being able to actively influence his life, but is convinced that life shapes him. He illustrates this basic feeling in six episodes of his life. In principle, the chronological autobiographical order is adhered to; however, since the episodes are arranged thematically, the chronological sequences overlap.

The first episode tells of the fruitless attempts to quit smoking. Time and again, Zeno is convinced that he will smoke his “ultima sigaretta”, but every time he has an excuse for having relapsed again.

The second chapter is devoted to the relationship with his father. A grotesque episode revolves around the father's death; the slap he gave the son in an argument is based on a misunderstanding.

As a plaything of circumstances, Zeno describes his role in choosing a partner (episode 3). Of four marriageable daughters whom he met in the house of his family friend, entrepreneur Malfenti, he got the most unattractive one he did not want. The self-confident practical Augusta, however, is exactly the woman who fits the fickle Zeno, and so the marriage develops happily without his active involvement.

That doesn't prevent Zeno from getting a lover (episode 4). The outwardly attractive Clara, a girl from a poor background, embodies a change from the uniform upper-class boredom. At the same time, the relationship gives Zeno the opportunity to reflect on his guilty conscience. In the end, Clara leaves Zeno in favor of a music teacher whom he introduced to her himself.

Episode 5 tells the story of the company that Zeno founded with his brother-in-law Guido (the husband of the Malfenti daughter, Ada, who originally interested him); When trying to fake suicide after unsuccessful speculation on the stock market, Guido accidentally died by taking too high a dose of sedative. Zeno then takes over the management of his father's company, which was previously managed by an administrator. The now necessary preoccupation with corporate strategies and financial planning distracts Zeno from the previously cultivated self-reflection.

Even if Zeno describes himself as incompetent, at this point he eliminated his rival Guido, took over the business and found happiness in marriage.

The last chapter breaks with the previous one in terms of form and content. The diary structure selected here cannot provide a summarizing, meaningful review, but only reflect what has happened up to the time of an entry. Zeno broke off psychotherapy and after a one year break would like to write again, but no longer for Doctor S. (even if he finally left his diary to him.) After a few entries from May 1915, there is again a writing break until March 1916. He makes fun of being "released as cured" against his will, the result produced by Doctor S. does not convince him. His own explanation is that all of society is sick. The last entry culminates in the apocalyptic vision of a final catastrophe that will make the earth free of people and disease.

interpretation

First, autobiographical features can be recognized: Svevo came from a merchant family and had married into an entrepreneurial family. So he knew the relationships he was discussing.

The autobiographical report, which does not follow a strict chronology, but rather the inner order of the first-person narrator, constitutes a new narrative form for Italian literature, which is clearly different from the authorial or personal narrative attitude of verism in the 19th century. This tendency still lingers on the subject of “illness in society”, but the protagonist is not sick with the historical social conditions, but with his own attitude towards it, which is deterministic and passive. In this respect, the ego-centeredness that the characters of fin de siècle and decadence literature show also resonates , albeit in a new - self-ironic and thus distant - perspective.

The first-person narrator is not a chronicler who strives for objectivity. With what we experience, we are completely dependent on the introspection. Influences from James Joyce , who encouraged Svevo to make this third attempt after two unsuccessful novels, have been worked out in literature. In some passages the narrative approaches the inner monologue. However, there is no stream of consciousness technique in the narrower sense.

The self-deprecating narrative attitude - and constant emphasis that Zeno is the “malato” and the others are the “sani” - is implicitly and in the last chapter also explicitly a swipe at the totality claim of psychoanalysis with a fool of the Oedipus complex . Svevo, of the imperial German -Trieste prewar mother tongue was, the work of had Sigmund Freud read. The figure of Doctor S. is a parody of the psychoanalyst.

The report that Doctor S. intended as a therapeutic writing has in reality become a story of its own. From this perspective it is called into question who is the sick and who is the healthy here. The reader does not know to what extent he can trust the inner attitude of the first-person narrator, whether he is lying or deceiving himself, because he is an unreliable narrator . For many readers, this tension is what makes the novel so attractive, with which Svevo achieved his literary breakthrough at the age of 62.

Svevo had begun the first sketches for this novel in 1907; it was published in 1923.

expenditure

A first German edition appeared in 1928:

There are monolingual and bilingual editions; Translator Barbara Kleiner

literature

  • Karl Heitmann: Italo Svevos “La coscienza di Zeno”. The novel in today's representations. in: Zs. Italian . Ed. Deutscher Italianistenverband DIV. Professional association “Italian in Science and Education.” C / o Friedrich Verlag Seelze. Issue 3, May 1980, pp. 2-26.
  • Till R. Kuhnle: Italo Svevo, "La coscienza di Zeno - Zeno Cosini", in: Hans-Vilmar Geppert, ed .: Great works of literature , Vol. 9, Francke, Tübingen 2005 ISBN 3-7720-8138-X , Pp. 141-164.
  • Christof Weiand: Italo Svevo, “La coscienza di Zeno”. in Martha Kleinhans & Klaus Stierstorfer, eds., Readings for the 21st Century. Key texts in European literature: England, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Russia. (Lecture series at the University of Würzburg 2000). Königshausen & Neumann , Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-8260-1944-X , pp. 137–156.
  • Tullio Kezich, Claudio Magris (preface): Svevo e Zeno, vite parallele. Cronologia comparata di Ettore Schmitz (Italo Svevo) e Zeno Cosini, con notizie di cronaca triestina ed europea. All 'insegna del pesce d'oro, Milano 1970 (series: Narratori, 33); again Il Formichiere, 1972, 1978. In Italian

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Italo Svevo: "Zeno Cosini" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 51 , 1959, pp. 84 ( Online - Dec. 16, 1959 ).
  2. ↑ examines the autobiographical parts of the book