Geographies and Histories of World Literature in Interwar Italian Magazines

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Abstract

This article adopts a historiographical approach to analyse some key debates on world literature that played out in literary and cultural magazines during the Italian Fascist dictatorship. It shows that by hosting such debates – especially on realism – in seemingly random fashion, literary and cultural magazines in the 1920s and 1930s significantly contributed to problematise the cultural politics of a xenophobic regime regarding the arts in general, and literature in particular. To this end, I focus on journals of different sizes, political orientations and visibility to provide different theorisations of world literature. Finally, by discussing the multiple epitomes of world literature that the magazines created, I question the presence of what may be considered a coherent national, or even canonical, literature to argue that world and national literatures could co-exist when made to function not just as literary but also as a cultural mechanism.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1–212
JournalJournal of World Literature
Volume8
Early online date30 May 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 May 2023

Keywords

  • fascist Italy
  • realism
  • La Ronda
  • Il Convegno
  • Corrente
  • Occidente

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