A Mediterranean Bloomsbury. Domenico Rea in the Postwar Naples

Editor: FedOA -Federico II University Press

Series: Orion. Studies and texts of Italian literature

Page: 207

Language: Italian

Abstract: The text sets out the reasons why it was thought to juxtapose the “Sud” group, active in post-World War II Naples, with the one called Bloomsbury, named after the London neighborhood that in the early decades of the twentieth century was home to the intellectuals who made it famous. In fact, the two communities turned out to be significantly related: both constituted by relations at the same time intellectual, political and affective, both cultivated innovative projects on the level of thought and custom, cultivated the civilizing force of culture and literature and believed in utopia, recognizing themselves as promoters of a “renaissance” of their respective realities. The environment and atmosphere of Rea's youth, marked first by the magazine “Sud” and then by that of “The Narrative Reasons,” are thus placed in full light and enhanced in the perspective of the intellectual biography of the writer whose centennial is being celebrated. The interventions that follow then explore Rea's own relationship with, respectively, Mario Stefanile, Luigi Incoronato, Anna Maria Ortese, Raffaele La Capria, and Michele Prisco. While the city of Naples, as a text and as a paradigm of thought, serves as a backdrop for the various reflections; Rea's language and style are subjected to an enlightening revisiting; and the rereading of the two journals, “Sud” and “Le ragioni narrative,” allows us to profitably scan the writer's career.