Memorie da una casa di riposo. "In St. Jürgen" (1868) di Theodor Storm

In the second half of the 19th century, a common literary trend in German-speaking countries can be detected in the use of the frame story and in a certain experimentalism pertaining to this literary device. In particular, the fictional narrative situation of a character writing down a story, which was told to him by another person some years before, leads to various reflections on the problematic relation- ship between oral and written narration: not only with regard to a semantic and rhetoric translation from one medium to another, but also concerning the personal involvement of the narrator in his/ her own individuality. These topics are exemplified and discussed in this paper by considering Theodor Storm’s short story In St. Jürgen, in which a primary narrator recounts two versions of the same love story, told to him at two different times by the two main characters involved. This interweaving structure of recalling and telling past events is examined here in the light of the dichotomous perspective of youth and old age recurring in the story, focusing in particular on the ways and reasons of recalling events and on the choices made when they are later transmitted either orally or in writing.Two mo- dalities linked with the opposite concepts young vs old, near vs far and united vs divided.