NOSTALGIC LYRISM AND MODERN ALIENATION IN CORRADO ALVARO

Abstract

This essay, through the excursus of Corrado Alvaro’s large narrative corpus, intends to investigate the conflictual relationship between the Calabrian “little ancient world”, of which the writer passionately kept the memory of its atavistic historical and cultural identity, apparently static and immutable, compared to the first leaps of change caused by European cultural and economic progress of the first half of the twentieth century. However, the privileged object of his neorealist narration remained the world of the shepherds and peasants of the South, a world of ancient and new injustices, populated by characters that rise to a mythical and universal dimension, through the filter of memory that transfigures them in a lyrical perspective. Lost in the tortuous and alienating labyrinth of the great modern cities of which he was able to grasp lights and shadows, the author still reveals his many facets, not always adequately focused. Acute intelligence, sensitive and restless in subtly investigating the varied and complex reality contemporary to him, he conceived literature not as an instrument of escape or delight, but aimed at changing reality with a highly ethical and committed value in the difficult period between the two Wars. Keywords: Corrado Alvaro, reality; evocative lyricism; modern alienation.

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