Baldini, A orcid.org/0000-0001-7783-9283 (2018) The liberal imagination of Giovanni Verga: verismo as moral realism. The Italianist, 37 (3). pp. 348-368. ISSN 0261-4340
Abstract
In this article, I argue that Verga's verismo should be seen against the backdrop of the writings of the meridionalisti, the public intellectuals and political reformers in post-Unification Italy concerned with the country's South, as well as of his own early works. Although scholars have long established the influence of the meridionalisti on Verga's verismo, the way in which he breaks from the basic pattern of their moral imaginary has not been explored. By looking at texts by the meridionalisti, I will show how these social scientists were unable to come to terms with the two main features of modern Italy's moral landscape, namely pluralism and the heterogeneity of values. More specifically, it is their Romantic nationalism that prevents the meridionalisti from perceiving those features. And this is where Verga departs from his sources, as well as from his own early narrative fiction. Verga's verismo is better understood as a form of moral realism, which fully acknowledges the pluralism and heterogeneity of the modern moral experience.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Departments of Italian Studies at the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Reading. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The Italianist on 16 March 2018, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02614340.2017.1409313 |
Keywords: | Giovanni Verga, verismo, realism, liberal imagination, literature and morality, modern Italy |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) > Italian (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Nov 2017 13:25 |
Last Modified: | 16 Sep 2019 00:39 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/02614340.2017.1409313 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:123637 |