Un labyrinthe de papier (introduction à la philologie gramscienne)

After having traced the publishing history of the Notebooks, from their first edition in thematic form to the new critical edition presently being completed, the essay then deals with the peculiarities of Gramsci's prison writing, a full understanding of which is necessary in order to capture the author's "rhythm of thought". Some of these peculiarities - starting with the use of school notebooks, rather than notepads or single sheets, as writing material - were imposed by prison conditions, while others stem from "rules" which he followed more or less knowingly (some continually and others only in certain phases of his work) in writing the notes. The study of this behaviour, together with a minute analysis of the physical nature of the prison notebooks (covers, interventions by the prison authorities, handwriting and so on) has provided a notable quantity of indirect dating elements which, together with Gramsci's (sparse) direct indications, has allowed us to reconstruct with ever greater precision the chronology of the individual notebooks and the blocks of notes they contain. The composite nature of Gramsci's manuscripts has also emerged quite clearly, manuscripts which may be divided (with some approximation, due to the presence of "mixed notebooks", into notebooks devoted to translation, miscellaneous notebooks and special ones. The new critical edition, devoting one volume (in its turn divided into different books) to each of these three typologies of notebook, aims at the most faithful restoration possible of this essential aspect of the prison work.

Available online: Laboratoire italien (Accessed December 19, 2016)