This note focuses on two essays: 'La sfida al labirinto' by Italo Calvino and 'Del modo di formare come impegno sulla realtà' by Umberto Eco (henceforth 'Sfida' and 'Modo', respectively). Both essays were published in the Turin-based...
moreThis note focuses on two essays: 'La sfida al labirinto' by Italo Calvino and 'Del modo di formare come impegno sulla realtà' by Umberto Eco (henceforth 'Sfida' and 'Modo', respectively). Both essays were published in the Turin-based literary journal Il menabò in 1962, in the midst of a debate surrounding the connection between industry and literature that had originated in the previous number of the publication. From different angles, and with only partially divergent arguments, both essays discuss literary and cultural responses to Italian industrialization. The first section of this note will compare the two essays and analyse their paratexts. The second part will highlight the subtle, yet pervasive influence of 'Modo' in Eco's later works, before moving to a discussion of the double consonance between, on the one hand, Calvino's discussion of maps in 'Sfida' and Fredric Jameson's idea of cognitive mapping, and on the other hand, between Eco's analysis of creative exhaustion in 'Modo' and John Barth's 'literature of exhaustion'. The note ultimately argues that 'Sfida' and 'Modo' represent not only a key step in their authors' intellectual paths, but also the first stirrings of Italian postmodernism.
