New realism and angaged aesthetics in post-war France and Italy

Realistic aesthetics, with its totalisating vocation, constitutes an ideal support of the transcription of events connected with actuality. The novel based on the principle of verosimility, the one that represents reality, organises and interpretes it, can become, more than any other literary genre, the expression of the author's ideas, transmitted by the narrator or the characters. This means that the author is always engaged in a way, because their story presents an oriented vision of the world, situated and concrete, determinating at the same time the construction of the protagonists, as well as the employed narrative techniques. Thus, the writer is engaged, in the full sense of the term, while they refuse to be impartial towards the represented reality. Therefore, they construct their vision in a lucid and thoughtful way, and their procedure implies a reaction from the reader. It is not necessarily meant to make them adopt the author's opinion and join, for example, a doctrine or a party, but, first of all, to awake their critical spirit and incite them to action. After 1945, this conception of engagement is very popular in French and Italian literary circles, and, therefore, make them transform remarcably the technique of classical realism. The latter, under the influence of sociopolitical factors, gives birth to its two principal avatars: socialist realism (France) and neorealism (Italy), without forgetting, thou, the contribution of objective realism, characteristic of American novel, that inspires the writers on both sides of the Alps, considerably revitalising their work.

Keywords: realism; aesthetic; engagement; novel; post-war period; France; Italy