Gramsci’s prison-coded language hides radical theory in aesthetic terms
Evidence
The highly original use here of the word “catharsis” to indicate (roughly speaking) the acquisition of revolutionary consciousness was perhaps suggested to Gramsci by his mental habit of selecting terminology unlikely to alert the suspicions of the censor. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2556
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Explains Gramsci’s idiosyncratic use of ‘catharsis’ as revolutionary consciousness — a term the reader will meet in the notebooks.
- QUESTION: Worth noting that this editorial gloss is conjecture about Gramsci’s censorship strategy — the etymology matters for reading other coded terms in the notebooks.
Related
- Gramsci’s prison terminology camouflaged revolutionary concepts against censorship (similarity 0.92)
- Censorship forced Gramsci’s political commentary into opaque, allusive form in prison (similarity 0.82)
- Prison censorship forced Gramsci to rewrite his notebooks using veiled language. (similarity 0.82)
- Incarceration’s isolation from source texts shaped Gramsci’s theoretical work. (similarity 0.80)
- The prison Notebooks’ fragmentary form shapes how his concepts must be read (similarity 0.79)
- Gramsci disguised ideal future systems as the past to evade censors. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Incarceration’s isolation from source texts shaped Gramsci’s theoretical work.
#complicates(0.75) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2782