Nasul memoriei:

de la crizanteme la nori. Olfactivul ca mecanism narativ (Lawrence – Allende – Crichton Smith – Wordsworth)/ The Nose of Memory: From Chrysanthemums to Clouds. Olfaction as a Narrative Mechanism (Lawrence – Allende – Crichton Smith – Wordsworth)

Abstract

This article proposes a progressive model of olfactory memory as a narrative mechanism across four distinct textual regimes: domestic revelation (D.H. Lawrence), affective and erotic sociality (Isabel Allende), thanatic embodiment and sensory negativity (Iain Crichton Smith), and
trans-sensory recall as reparative interiority (William Wordsworth). Rather than treating smell as ornament or metaphor, the paper argues that olfaction operates as an agent of narrative truth, restructuring temporality and subjectivity through involuntary recall, spatial saturation,
and bodily thresholds. The corpus is deliberately staged as an evolution from explicit odour (material, intrusive) to latent olfaction (suggested through fluids, textiles, and claustrophobic air), culminating in a “solar translation” of the same mnemonic mechanism into Wordsworth’s visual inwardness. Methodologically, the study combines close reading with a concise sensory-narratology framework, showing how olfactory cues, named or withheld, organise affect, memory, and ethical attention to the vulnerable body.