Outplaying Kronos' Hunger: Massimo Bontemplelli's GENTE NEL TEMPO

Abstract

This essay offers an interpretation of Massimo Bontempelli's “novecentista” novel, Gente nel tempo, by examining and expanding upon the implications of the “modernized” classical Greek myth of Kronos. In the light of the author's ideas on artistic creativity, history and time, this myth lies at the very core of the work and suggests that this novel, while pointing to the destructive, devouring pattern of time intended as Kronos, could also hint at a way in which an alternative, more human time (Kairos) might be salvaged and re-experienced. Bontempelli's desired “recovery of the individual” and his related aesthetic project of escape from the negativity of History may derive from an alternative “kairotic” experience in which time is characterized by its qualitative rather that its quantitative nature and artistic creativity reacquires a preeminent, active role. For Bontempelli, I ultimately argue, the category of “play,” in all its ramifications, represents this sort of salvific experience.