Psyche and law of participation: the metamorphoses of the demon in Dino Terra's novel (1929-1938)

Abstract

This paper aims to emphasize how Dino Terra takes hold of Lucien Levy-Bruhl analysis about loi de participation into the narrative of his first novels between 1929 and 1938. Borrowed from Les faux-monnayeurs by Andre Gide, the demon in Ioni. Qualche tempo di due umani e d’un demone (1929) acts as a omniscient narrator. This figure, who is subjected to a profound metamorphosis in the following novel, Profonda notte (1932), through the hallucinated vision of the character lost in the Arctic, reverts to an almost traditional appearance in Fuori tempo (1938). In this last novel, the central character submits to the teaching of the scientific wizard, prof. Leo Vario, who is obsessed with «twisting time» and does not hesitate to converse with an elegantly dressed modern Devil. Initially the interpreter of the character’s unconscious, the figure of the demon, who later turns to the Devil, becomes embodiment of the unconscious, in a world which implements what French philosopher Lucien Levy-Bruhl analyzed as law of participation.