Abstract
In this work we investigate how the old topos “after the storm comes the calm” appears in authors such like Homer, Aristotle, Virgil, Dante Alighieri, Giacomo Leopardi, and Herman Melville, so as to analyze its presence in the work of Primo Levi (1919-1987), a chemist and writer from Turin who survived and witnessed the horrors of Auschwitz. Although this commonplace appears in a more evident way in The Drowned and the Saved (1986), its assumptions supported Levi’s reflections on the experiences in the Lager, especially in what concerns the limits of representation. The itinerary of a topical in different (con)texts admits meanings not always analogous, because each formulation is based on prescriptions, categories, orientations, and particular styles. Through this study, it is intended to contribute with reflections on what is “unrepresentable” in the literature of testimony, by showing an effort to figure the unheard and amplify dramatic and/or tragic events with conventional arguments, many of them derived from ancient literate practices.
Keywords:
Commonplace; Auschwitz; Primo Levi