Narrating the contagion

Abstract

In considering the Covid-19 pandemic as a narrative,
this article aims to focus on the discursive modalities that guided the story of the pandemic situation in the Italian context, with particular attention to the rhetorical and thematic structure. Subsequently, the
essay focuses on two specific texts: Nel contagio (2020) by Paolo Giordano and Giuseppe Genn a’s Reality (2020), to identify, on a stylistic-rhetorical level, the persistence of specific cognitive frames – first of all the personification of the viral agent – that make the story of the pandemic a real apocalyptic narrative.