Nomi propri e narrazione in Horcynus Orca di Stefano D’Arrigo

Abstract

In Stefano D’Arrigo’s novel Horcynus Orca (1975), the language is of primary importance for many reasons, starting from the author’s search for a completely new language, based on a mixture of Sicilian and Italian. In the novel, characters often discuss the meaning of words, because in the fishing community words and things coincide: local words (the words of fishermen in the Straits of Messina) are compared wlth (unknown) Italian words. Furtherrnore, because of this strong, epic coincidence between words and things, the novel tries to motivate language. The paper shows how personal names are fully involved in the continuous process of motivation of language: the destruction of the old fishlng community also means that personal names h ave become only empty sounds.