Progressione narrativa e climax nel 'Critico d'arte' di Dino Buzzati

Buzzati’s brief tale Il critico d’arte (1956), whose main character impatiently writes and rewrites his review of a painting exhibition, each time in a more obscure and nonsensical language, has generally been interpreted as a mere parody of the pretentious style of art critics. As a result, its narrative frame, characterised by a rhetorical crescendo known in Buzzati’s terms as progressione, has often been neglected. Nevertheless, the three drafts of the critic’s review scattered in the tale can itself be considered as part of the narrative progression. As a matter of fact, the three versions build an expressive climax, reproducing, on a microtextual level, the wider rhetorical crescendo of the tale.