For an archeology of the novel and the fictional: hypothesis on genre, origin, form

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13136/2284-2667/1313

Keywords:

novel, romance, Enzo Melandri, theory of the novel, genres

Abstract

The article reflects problematically on the idea of ​​literary genre in relation to the novel form. It starts from the considerations of an essay by Enzo Melandri and taking into account the most recent theoretical attitudes, analyzes the possibility of tracing the historical processes of the novel through a patient archeology that helps in the recovery of textual witnesses. The intrinsic impossibility of arriving at the original source of what is fictional is hypothesized, but the very hypothesis of the fictional as a model in itself, linked to deep structures rooted in time, is proposed. From this point of view, the division of tasks between the most recent experimental research and literary criticism in the field must proceed as two phases and with two different instruments, but communicating and companions and with moments and points of contact.

Copertina di Historias Fingidas, Numero Speciale 2 (2023): Forme e origini del romanzo. Immagine di copertina: Leen Nina, "French actress Barbara Laage in her apartment reading" (Maggio 1946)

Downloads

Published

2023-05-16

Issue

2023: Special Issue 2: Forms and origins of the novel

Section

Monographic

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Giovanni Cara

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors must attend to the following conditions:

  1. Authors will mantain the copyright of their work and leave to the journal first publishing rights, simultaneously licensed by a Creative Common License - Attribution - No Commercial Use that permits other researchers to share the work indicating the intellectual property of the author and the first publishing in this journal not for commercial use.
  2. Authors can adhere to other license agreements not exclusive to the distribution of the published version of their work (for example: include it in an institutional archive or publish it in a monografic book), with the agreement of indicating that the first publishing belongs to this journal.
  3. Authors can disseminate their work (for example in institutional repositories or their personal website) before and during the submission procedure, as it can lead to advantageous exchanges and citations of the work (see also, The Effect of Open Access).