Abstract

My doctoral dissertation explores the contribution of philosophic and scientific thought to the development of Luigi Malerba's narrative work from 1963 to the present. ;One of the most representative contemporary Italian writers, Malerba was a member of the neo-avantgarde movement Gruppo 63. Therefore, I analyze first the cultural milieu in which the Neoavanguardia elaborated its literary program, in order to stress the significant openness of the movement to the main streams of modern philosophy and science. ;Malerba's original interaction with philosophic ideas, such as the Husserl's phenomenological notion of "epoche," or with scientific theories, such as Heisenberg's "indeterminacy principle," confirms Lotman's analysis of cultural contextuality. ;Malerba's first collection of short stories La scoperta dell'alfabeto and much more the novels of the first trilogy enhance linguistic experimentalism as unavoidable tool to express radical criticism against the illusion of literary tradition to understand and describe reality. Reality itself does not fit anymore into a given set of logical rules, as clearly shown by scientific and philosophical notions of indeterminism and probability. ;The recovery of more articulate narration on both levels of language and structure characterizes Malerba's second trilogy . His more recent novels reaffirm the critical power of literature through the assumption of its crisis as exhaustive description of reality in its subjective and objective manifestations. The experimental energy of Malerba's narrative has shifted from the linguistic to the structural, logical and meta-narrative level. ;Malerba's open narrative journey sheds new light on the central role of literature in our time. As a matter of fact, Malerba's "letteratura della riflessione" has contributed significantly to build up critical thinking by extending and not merely describing reality