Italian 1
Questionnaire Orient-Express

Italiane 1 - Group 5 - University of Edinburgh, April 1997

The questionnaire consists of 3 sections

• Section I : Comprehension and Linguistic Analysis
• Section II: Style and Narrative
• Section III: Literary Writing and Computer

The questionnaire examines seven versions of the beginning of Francesca Sanvitale's short story Orient-Express. The seven passages (A-B-C-D-E-F-H) represent the writing evolution of the initial draft (A) up to its final version (H). The author introduced version (G) later on Orient-Express is part of the collection Separazioni , Einaudi, Turin, 1997.

Section I: Comprehension and Linguistic Analysis

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1. Compare the first and the last passage (A - H), and identify the main changes to the sequence of events and thoughts, e.g. introduction / suppression of facts/thoughts; transformations of sequences / tenses; lengthening and shortening of the sentences, etc.

2. Single out the most significant syntactic changes in passages B,C and D. (E.g. : analyse beginning and ending, different words' order, and modified punctuation of the sentences.)

3. Examine the first three lines of each passage paying spacial attention to the complexity of the sentence, and explain how the author employs coordination and subordination.

4. Analyse the description of the restaurant (in B,C,D,E,F and H), and pinpoint the transformations the author makes in the versions mentioned above.

5. Based on what feelings or facts does the protagonist select the restaurant Orient-Express ?

6. How does the male character evolve in the protagonist's evocation? In particular, explain how themes and lexis related to him vary in the seven passages.

7. Analyse corrections and re-organisation of the text in lines 24-25-26 of the last six versions (from B onwards).

8. Examine and comment on incipit (l, 1-3) of all the seven versions. Is there any tendency, or perhaps more than one, that you have noticed and can account for?

9. Now consider two separate groups of words: on one side nouns and adjectives, on the other, verbs and adverbs and look at how they change (as for types and frequency) in the texts of the seven versions. (E.g. Types: abstract or concrete nouns / attributive or predicative adjectives; stative or dynamic adverbs / adverbs of time or manner. Frequency: look at the ourance of the types of words.)

10. Single out any other recurrent linguistic pattern of the text which have been maintained throughout or repeated in the seven passages.

 

Section II: Style and Narrative

1. Referring to what you have noticed in section I, and especially with regard to your answers to questions 1,2,3,8,9,10, verify:

• i. the style of writing Sanvitale tends to (E.g. Realistic/imaginative, simple/rich, symbolic/metaphoric.)
• ii. How does the rhythm of the passage vary? (E.g. you can refer to the musical scale, or you can define it with your own words.)
• iii. How does the narrator's tone vary, if it does, in the passage ? (E.g. formal / informal / colloquial / personal / impersonal / nostalgic etc.)

2. With regard to n. 1, 4, 5, 6 in section I, identify:

• i. The type of narrator Sanvitale impersonates. E.g. authoritative, omniscient, homodiegetic/heterodiegetic (a narrator who does not participate in the story is called heterodiegetic: Genette 1972).
  • ii. The point of view or focalization (Genette:1972) of the narration. (E.g. The story is presented in the text through the mediation of one or more "points of view".)
  • iii. The most relevant aspects of the characterization. (E.g. the presentation of the characters is explicit /implicit, realistic/stylized, etc.)
  • iv. The function of the first passage (A) with regard to the main themes of the story.

3. Supporting your answers with evidence, define whether the final version (H) allows:

• i. A better/worse development of the main themes of the story
• ii. A more/less flexibile narration
• iii. A more/less cohesive style

 

4. Comment on the choice of the title Orient -Express, with particular regard to the temporal dimension of the story.

 

Section III: Computer and Writing

The seven passages of Orient-Express have been reproduced artificially to run an experiment on computer influence on literary writing. If you are interested, and you want to know more on the subject, please read the abstract.

1. Write your own edition of the examined passage. You can drawn on all or just some of the seven versions, and are allowed to bring back parts of the writing discarded by the author. You can also insert your "emendationes" (alterations), but whenever you choose to add something, you need to mark it by square brackets. When moving or inserting any of Sanvitale's sentence or phrase, remember to use round brackets, e.g. (version F1, l.3-4. etc.)

2. The analysis you have carried out, together with the editing of your own version should have made you reflect on how computer may influence both the composition of a text, in our case a literary text, and the textual analysis. Have you noticed any specific aspects or tendencies in Sanvitale's work,or in your analysis which may be specifically related to or influenced by the use of a word processor?

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