From Neorealism to a new narrative
After the Second World War, Neorealism began in Italy in books and in film. Its aim was to speak about real life: workers, farmers, soldiers and partisans, in the real voices of the places they came from. Italo Calvino's first novel Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno (1947) and Primo Levi's Se questo è un uomo (1947) came from this time. Neorealism was not one school with strict rules; it was a shared wish to tell the truth. Soon writers took very different paths, shown below.
Beppe Fenoglio
Beppe Fenoglio (1922-1963) came from the Langhe hills of Piedmont. In Il partigiano Johnny and Una questione privata he writes about the partisan war not as glory but as a hard and lonely journey. His English-flavoured, rough, exact style and his landscape of hills, fog and mud make him a strong, fresh voice. His heroes are young, doubtful and brave.
Carlo Emilio Gadda
Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973) was an engineer who became a writer. In Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana (1957) a detective story does not end with a clear answer. Gadda mixes Roman dialect, slang, scientific words and fancy language (this is called "pastiche" or multi-style). The world is a tangle of causes, and his language copies the tangle. Also read La cognizione del dolore.
Italo Calvino
Italo Calvino (1923-1985) began in the Neorealist way, then moved to fable and play. His trilogy I nostri antenati includes Il visconte dimezzato, Il barone rampante (a boy who lives on trees) and Il cavaliere inesistente. Later books like Le città invisibili (1972) and Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (1979) play with how stories are made. His Lezioni americane names the qualities he values: lightness, quickness, exactness, visibility and multiplicity.
Primo Levi
Primo Levi (1919-1987) was a chemist from Turin. In Se questo è un uomo he gives witness of his time in a Nazi camp, and in La tregua he tells the long journey home. Il sistema periodico (1975) links each chapter to a chemical element. I sommersi e i salvati (1986) thinks about memory and shame. His style is clear, calm and exact, so the facts speak. His aim is to understand and to remember.
Optional voices: Pavese, Pasolini, Morante
- Cesare Pavese (1908-1950): La luna e i falò (1950), about memory, the countryside and returning home.
- Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975): Ragazzi di vita (1955), about boys on the poor edges of Rome, in their own slang.
- Elsa Morante (1912-1985): L'isola di Arturo and La storia (1974), which sees history through simple people.
You can compare them with Verga and verismo: both speak for people at the edge of society.
Try it
Describe your walk to school in four ways: like Fenoglio (plain and rough), Gadda (every voice and slang), Calvino (a small fable) and Levi (a clear, exact report).
Key formulas and definitions
- Neorealism: true stories of ordinary people after 1945
- Fenoglio: partisan war as hard human road
- Gadda: pastiche, many voices, tangled prose
- Calvino: fable, lightness, game with story pieces
- Levi: clear witness and scientific eye
Worked examples
1. What is the main aim of Neorealism?
To tell true stories of ordinary people and the war in their real voices, with simple, honest language.
2. Why is Gadda's prose called a "tangle"?
He mixes dialects, slang and learned words, and his stories do not give one clear cause. The language copies a world with many causes.
3. How does Levi's style differ from Gadda's?
Levi is clear, calm and exact, like a chemist's report. Gadda is crowded and twisted with many voices.
Common mistakes
- Treating Neorealism as one strict school. It was a shared wish for truth.
- Calling Calvino only a fantasy writer. His early work is realist and his later work is about how stories are made.
- Saying Levi invents his story. He gives witness of what he lived.
- Mixing up Gadda (tangle) with Fenoglio (hill path).