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Abstract
By analyzing the biblical narrative and retelling the story of Christ, the fiction of the 1960s and 70s strongly impacts upon--and is also affected by--the cultural and literary debate engaged by the Italian intellectuals after WWII. This dissertation explores the appropriation by the Italian writers of the story and rhetoric of the New Testament to construct their narrative. On the one hand, they engage in a confrontation with--and critique of--the Christian and Catholic tradition while carrying on a dialogue with the new literary and philosophical movements of this century (from Modernism to Existentialism). On the other hand, they partake in the debate on stylistic experimentation and on the future of the novel as a genre. This dissertation begins by discussing the narrative of such authors as G. Papini, M. Brelich, G. Morselli, R. Pazzi and E. De Luca, from the 1920s to the 1990s, and their use of the Scriptures as a conceptual source--questioning both the author's and the reader's historical identity as they bear witness to religious truth--as well as literary models--proposing a realistic narrative while preserving the epistemological potential of verbal language. The discussion is articulated in the light of W. Benjamin's "Theses on the Philosophy of History," P. Ricoeur's discussion of the theology of the word, N. Frye's analysis of the Bible as the great Code and G. Vattimo's most recent equation between postmodern thought and Christian secularization. In the following three chapters, I analyze P. P. Pasolini's script San Paolo (1968-74), M. Pomilio's historical novel Il quinto evangelio (1975) and G. Berto's autobiographical novel La gloria (1978). From a narratological and thematic standpoint, these writings are the most effective key to access the artist's attempt not only to redefine his political role in contemporary society while wording his personal metaphysical anxiety in a time of historical disillusionment, but also to understand his commitment to tracing an alternative literary trend to the Italian artistic impasse of the 1960s and 1970s. Finally I argue that while putting into question the communicability, in a historicized language, of the discourse bearing witness to the event-Christ, understood as the foundation of Western civilization, these authors apparently fail to rationalize the individual's multifaceted and intellectually burdened experience of modernity. In fact, they convincingly reassert and prove the hermeneutical power of human imagination and language.
