"A sentence from Thomas Nashe's poem "Litany in time of Plague" which recites "brightness falls from the hair" has been center of controversies in the literary world, and has been reflected upon by James Joyce who repeted it in "Portrait of the artist as a young man". In Joyce's version, the main character mis-remembers the original sentence and recites "darkness falls from the air".
The sentence moves, modify and become light and darkness, highlighting the philosophical and philological concerns with which the sentences have been imbued with though the centuries. A linguistic misfire that carries within itself the dichotomy between high and low, emerged and submerged: what is submerged is transparent and free from sociality, which transforms language and its hidden emergences."
Text by Benedetta Casagrande