Lo spazio narrativo del neorealismo italiano

This thesis tackles the problem of Italian Neorealism by taking into consideration three spatial aspects of its settings: referentiality, liminality and interior spaciousness. The first part focuses on one of the most challenging questions in today’s literary and geography studies, the interrelation between real and fictional spaces, or between the geographical referents and the ways artists use them in their worlds of fiction. Drawing upon Bertrand Westphal’s geocritique, this part of the analysis is especially useful for the reflection upon the realism of the novels. Focusing on the most common stereotypes of neorealist spatiality, the traditional dichotomy of North–South and city-countryside, the second part aims to point out that, at specific historical moments, the idea of a well distinguished “limit” that separates certain places from others becomes blurred and introduces liminal landscapes as main settings. The third part addresses the function of the projected settings in the Neorealist novels and examines the spaces that characters dream about, long for or remember. Their relationship with the physical world can vary on the referentiality scale, from places imported directly from the “geospace” to “elsewheres” impossible to locate. Since they are usually not anchored in the referential frame of the realist zone of action, the cognitive wanderings of the characters prove to be effective in questioning the limits of Neorealism and its relationship with other contemporary artistic movements.