A leading philosopher interprets the ancient myth of the girl evoked by the images created by one of the most cultured contemporary artists. The book includes a careful selection of the sources for the fascinating myth of Kore.
La ragazza indicibile unites two parallel attempts to examine the myth of Persephone-Kore, the Greek myth which, because of its connections with the Eleusinian mysteries, was one of the most closely linked to silence (the term “mystery” comes from a root that means “to close your mouth, to fall silent”). The dense, almost Pompeian pastels by Monica Ferrando and Giorgio Agamben’s clear text try to make this silence seem like an intense dialogue, in which the pictures and the text seem to speak to each other in turn.
The story of Kore, infernal and, at the same time, optimistic, her seizure and abduction by Pluto, Demeter’s untiring search, Baubo’s obscene laughter, and the foundation and meaning of the Eleusinian Mysteries are examined and, together, conjured up. And, at the end, the mystery of the unsayable girl no longer seems like a secret doctrine to be concealed from the uninitiated, but an initiation into life itself and its absence of mystery.