If on a Winter's Night a Traveler Analysis

            If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler is the second work by Italo Calvino interpreted this semester. This metanovel is similar to Invisible Cities in message but the structure is much different. Much like in Invisible Cities Calvino expresses an umbrella like meaningless covering human life. He also questions the written word and determines that once he, as the author, puts words on a page he loses control over their meaning. This is because there is no single meaning to any object, especially words/language. There is an infinite amount of perceptions that will be drawn from his words no matter how hard he tries to specify its intended meaning.

            A passage that really stands out is found on page 51, or the tenth page of chapter three, the professor is the character speaking. He say, “We are confined in this closet…The university expands and we contract… We are the poor stepchild of living language…If Crimmerian can still be considered a living language. But this is precisely its Value! The fact that it is a modern language and a dead language at the same time… A privileged position, even if nobody realizes…” (Calvino 51).

            I found this passage to be one of significance because it is a section where Calvino or the narrator discusses language, a message very prevalent of both his studied works. He is discussing the dying language of Crimmerian but ironically comes to the conclusion that the death of the language is an underlying blessing. The fact that the Crimmerian language is modern is a blessing because due to its modernity, humans have not had enough time to allow the infinite amount of perceptions reveals the overall meaningless of the language. Additionally, because it is a dying language, Crimmerian is helping humanity because it will die before it’s meaning is contaminated by human perception.