Fortini e la questione del realismo. Il confronto con Auerbach e Lukács

Abstract

The article draws on Fortini’s 1979 essay on realism and then discusses his debt to Auerbach and Lukács. For Fortini, the issue of realism serves as an opportunity to assess the validity of Lukács’ critical proposals and to examine some of the assumptions made in Mimesis – a book he never fully appreciated and which was received with reservations. This distance from Auerbach, often mediated by Lukács’ influence, is questioned in its logic and then brought back to methodological and political specificities that reveal a different way of conceiving the role of realism in modern literature. However, if we step outside the boundaries of realism, this divergence narrows; consequently, the article concludes by focusing on Fortini’s “figural Marxism”, an implicit and revealing proposal that combines analytical tools of both Lukács and Auerbach.