Return

El  objeto  del  presente  artículo  es  resolver  las  dudas  que  genera  en  la  función  pública  local  el  reparto  constitucional  de  competencias  regulatorias,  la  sucesiva  superposición  de  reformas  legislativas  y  la  pervivencia de leyes y reglamentos obsoletos, en cuanto al plazo máximo de duración de la excedencia voluntaria por interés particular y las condiciones de reingreso al servicio activo. / The purpose of this article is to solve the doubts arisen from the constitutional distribution of powers to rule the local civil service, from the successive overlapping of legislative amendments and from the persistence of obsolete laws and regulations, as regards to the maximum duration of leaves on personal grounds and the conditions of return to active duty.

In his 'Convivio,' Dante claims that 'the supreme desire of each thing, and the one that is first given to it by nature, is to return to its first cause.' Yet this formulation is marked by a tension: return is both a destination and a process. To put it in terms of an Augustinian distinction: does each thing simply desire to arrive in/at its 'patria' (homeland, destination, telos), or is its desire also directed towards the 'via' (way, process, journey)? On the one hand, the desire for return is teleological and singular; on the other, it is meandering, self-prolonging, perhaps even non-progressive. And return itself can also be errant, even when successful: to take one important example, medieval theology frequently conceptualizes the sins of heresy and sodomy as self-generating returns to unproductive sites of pleasure or obstinacy.

Return, then, is an uncanny thing, with a distinctive temporality that conjoins recollection, satisfaction , and frustration. It plays an important role in shaping many kinds of medieval cultural artifact. Return is a basic component of pseudo-Dionysian (and later, Thomistic) theories of intel-lection; for Boethius, it is inherent to the process of spiritual transcendence. Return also shapes literary texts: for instance, romance heroes desire to return to their homeland, but the obstacles placed in their path, or the digressions they undertake, are the basic preconditions of the stories in which they find themselves. In such cases, only a deferred return can satisfy; and is not inevitably satisfying, even when accomplished— it can also be a frustrating repetition of a well-trodden path. This is true of lyric texts as much as narrative ones: medieval lyric poems are often concerned with the human inclination to go back to an unfruitful site of pain, loss, or even dangerous enjoyment.

Return is also embedded in the very texture of medieval poetic and musical forms: the sestina, the refrain, and the terza rima all embody different kinds of recursivity. Dante's re-use of rhyme sounds in the unfolding of the 'Divine Comedy' — a poem that, at various crucial points, thematizes return as a transcendent symbol — performs a spiraling movement that combines repetition and progressive ascent. Reiteration can disrupt linear and teleological progress, but also empower it. How does medieval culture cope with this ambivalence?

The conference will explore the ways in which medieval literary, artistic, musical, philosophical, and theological texts perform, interrogate, and generate value from the complexities of return, with particular reference to its formal and temporal qualities.