Il motivo dei vanti tra radici storiche e archetipi: alcune riflessioni di metodo sulle classificazioni politetiche

Polythetic classifications in narratology and anthropology allow to enlarge our perspective on examined materials, through the comparison of recurrent patterns linked by simple and discontinuous similarities without any limitation required by exact identities. This flexible taxonomy can be extended both to a synchronic dimension, to highlight archetypic isotopies between literary texts and cultural institutions and customs, and to a diachronic level, even to reconstruct the historical roots of our patterns. This second hypothesis is discussed below, with particular reference to Massimo Bonafin’s latter work, based on a recurrent pattern discovered in French medieval epics and romances and its Indo-European origins.