Le parole necessarie

Two unpublished lessons and a conference by one of the major writers of the 1900’s. In these short but dense works, Pontiggia reflects on the value of the word and on the risk of its weakening or denaturing in the age of the predominance of oral communication and the image. In reality, as Pontiggia claims, “we really do not know how to speak, and we really do not know how to write either.” The use of the word requires energy and conviction and a intent gaze upon the interlocutor. Otherwise it remains “in a sort of pneumatic vacuum.”