ARTICOLI / 1 / Filippo Trentin /
This article aims to shed light on the intellectual relationship between Walter Benjamin and Pier Paolo Pasolini. While numerous scholars have commented on similarities and resemblances between the two authors, none of these critics has sought to further analyse them, thus leaving their relationship in the domain of the similitude. This essay aims to evolve from the analysis of analogies to that of a «discursive formation» (Foucault) between the works of the two intellectuals. It will do so through an archaeological investigation of concepts of ‘allegory’, ‘history’ and ‘montage’. Its double objective will be that of shedding a new light on the complexities of both Pasolini’s and Benjamin’s discourses, and that positioning Pasolini within a broader context of Western intellectuals who investigated the reticular – rather than the positivistic and linear – development of capitalist modernity.
