The challenge of modernity and Italo Calvino's literary responses: an examination of the relationship betweenhumanity and the world with literature as reconciling force

Abstract

In the age of cybernetics, contemporary man is experiencing an ever greater degree of alienation with himself, society and the universe. The Italian writer, Italo Calvino, characterized this phenomenon as “laceration” (“dimezzato” in Italian) and portrayed it in his 40-year writing career as a recurring theme. This study highlights Calvino’s understanding of and response to this challenge to modernity, which is arguably rooted in the era of Enlightenment when human beings addressed themselves as masters of Nature. Young Calvino was once a member of the Italian Communist Party (Italian: Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) and published his first novel as a neo-realist in 1947. He had written novels that portrayed the hardship of post-war Italy, however he had a vision that stretched beyond Italy and class struggle – the universal struggle of human existence. In the late 1950s, he left PCI and departed in his writing from neo-realism. He shifted to fantasy and metaphysics. But he did not abandon his compassion and concern for the fate of humanity. He remained cautious yet optimistic about the world in the next millennium, and literature holds the key to this mission. With the help of his work, both fiction and nonfiction, I will demonstrate how humanity is becoming increasingly perplexed and mutilated in this labyrinth-like existence, and how literature acts as an important instrument in mapping the world, thus aiding our understanding of the man-universe relationship and the possibility of discovering a hidden order.