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One of the most typical features of modernity is the acceleration of experience, systematically ruled by the economic principle. In Benjamin's interpretation, Baudelaire's poetry identifies in that acceleration some very notable points: it is a powerful multiplier of the transience of the world; it is the domain of a movement which is paradoxically static and which sustains no change in social structures; and it represents a constitutive threat to poetry. With a radically antagonistic gesture, Baudelaire drafts various strategies to contrast modernity: to give it an accomplished form, which includes all its negativity; to represent authentically his impoverished degraded experience; to fight it with his own means, through poetry of impact and shock.

[rec. di] Stefania SINI, “Contrasti di forme. Boris Èjchenbaum teorico della letteratura”, Milano, Ledizioni, 2018

Il populismo, inteso come stile di comunicazione pubblica caratterizzato dalla semplificazione, dal dogmatismo e dall’aggressività, è diffuso non solo in politica, ma anche in ambito filosofico. Un contro-modello rispetto ai suoi effetti di lacerazione può essere cercato nell’esperienza letteraria, in particolare nella sua capacità di connessione del reale.

Il “nuovo realismo” filosofico si fonda su presupposti estranei, se non apertamente ostili, rispetto alla letteratura, e quindi ha poco a che fare con il realismo letterario. Quest’ultimo è invece interpretato e supportato con efficacia dall’ermeneutica, contro cui il nuovo realismo ha acceso una dura polemica. The philosophical movement known as “New Realism” is based on assumptions which are alien, if not plainly hostile, to literature. Therefore it has little to share with literary realism, which on the contrary is effectively explained and supported by Hermeneutics, i.e. by the frequent polemic target of New Realism.

Literature draws fundamentally on the imagination and thus has the specific ability to identify and highlight new possibilities of human experience, and to understand aspects of reality which a common and inattentive look cannot perceive. Thanks to this form of understanding and interpretation, literature provides a disclosure of the world, and creates the conditions to transform, emancipate or liberate it. Instead, the more naïve versions of philosophical realism, particularly Italian “new realism”, that are bound to direct sensistic perception and are hostile to literary experience, are imprisoned in the concept of the unamendability of reality, and thus are devoid of the conceptual means to conceive a transformation of the world.

BOOK REVIEW: Luca BAGETTO, San Paolo. L'interruzione della legge

Il pensiero debole si è caratterizzato sin dall’inizio per una marcata connotazione etica, che riguarda non solo le persone e l’ambiente, ma anche le cose. In termini più diretti (Vattimo, Rovatti) o in forma più mediata (Dal Lago) tale atteggiamento ha uno stretto rapporto con l’esperienza letteraria, che ne costituisce uno fra i principali punti di partenza. Ciò rende particolarmente agevole ri-applicare tali proposte etiche alla letteratura. From the beginning, one of the most important features of Weak Thought is its pronounced ethical character, which concerns not only human beings and environment, but also things. In a direct way (Vattimo, Rovatti) or in a more mediate form (Dal Lago) this attitude has a close relationship with literary experience, which is one of its main starting points. It is thus very easy to re-apply these ethical propositions to literature.

Literature provides a specific space for complex reflection, where the events of life and the world are transferred from mere factual reality to a hermeneutical reality. This cognitive shift, basically rejected by the more naïve versions of philosophical realism, allows for a deeper understanding and interpretation of these occurrences. This is particularly evident with the experience of evil, that cannot be confined to a purely empirical dimension.

An analysis of the metaphor of the mirror confirms that literary realism is not a mere and optically objective reflection of reality, as meant by the more naïve versions of philosophical realism. On the contrary, it’s an hermeneutical interpretation of the world, driven by affectivity and emotions.

Emanuele KANCEFF, "L’immagine della Sicilia nei resoconti di viaggio del Settecento. Tra classicità ed emozione romantica", Scicli, Edizioni di storia e studi sociali, 2015 [Book Review]