Cuando el estilo se hace método: Carmelo Samonà

The essay considers the figure of Carmelo Samonà (1926-1990), a leading figure of 20th century Italian Hispanism, and attempts to relate the style of his prose (especially that of literary history manuals) and his critical-aesthetic vision, also based on the scholar’s own theoretical statements as well as on the existing bibliography. It also comments on fragments taken from Samonà’s pages, in order to verify the functionality of a writing style that is highly literary. Indeed, Samonà, who was perfectly familiar with contemporary critical theories and was by no means ignorant of their technicalities, opted for a literary and classical style of exposition, adopting a rhetoric (linguistic and argumentative) in which he had been trained, but which he also chose knowingly, in the service of his profession as a researcher (and writer).