Ears in an infirmary and a three corners hat: a sound and literary reading of Primo Levi’s work

Abstract

This article compares fragments of two works by Primo Levi – É isto um homem? e A trégua – through sound readings of their writings. Sound readings are understood as expanded attention to musicality and other auditory aspects expressed in the content and literary form of these works, forming a sound-textual fabric of singular aesthetic effect that allows several analyses. We seek to point out the creative expedients of the author in question, who is also a Shoah survivor, and the different perspectives that he uses to interact with music in the two books. The researcher tries to establish and enunciate certain poetics of listening, particularly those of greater political accent, using, in this process, sound elements such as dynamics, rhythm, melody and timbre.