VERISMO. — If by V. in literature one understands an vivid representation of characters or situations, it may be said that this form has never been absent from the various literary genres, and that it has constituted the condition for a more vigorous descriptive power.
In Homeric poetry, Thersites is portrayed: “lame, limping on one foot; his head was pointed at the top, from which sparse locks of hair sprouted” (Iliad, II, 216 ff.). Nor are personal or veristic references lacking in later lyric poetry: one need only think of Hipponax and of certain epigrams in the Palatine Anthology. At the time of the Second Sophistic, the rhetorician Alciphron, in his epistolary work, offers a series of types and little scenes drawn from everyday reality and concerning modest classes of people. In general, however, with regard to ancient Greek and Roman literature, it is preferable to call this realism or naturalism refined by a superior artistic sense rather than V. The unknown author of the short treatise on aesthetics Περὶ ὕδους prescribes: “that in descriptions of the sublime one must not descend to filthy and revolting details, unless compelled by some acknowledged necessity” (XLIII, 5).
Realistic elements abound in the songs of primitive peoples (E. von Sydow, Poesia di popoli primitivi, Italian translation, Modena 1951), and medieval Italian lyric poetry, like that beyond the Alps, does not shrink from humble or sometimes grotesque descriptions. One may recall Dante’s encounter with the demons (Inf., XXI and XXII), the realism of François Villon’s Balade des Pendus, certain poems by Cecco Angiolieri, and Cene da la Chitarra’s burlesque parody of Folgore di S. Gimignano’s sonnets of the months. Romanesque sculpture, too, in its allegories of the months or the virtues, took representations of human activity as its subject (P. D’Ancona, L’uomo e le sue opere nelle figurazioni italiane del medioevo, Florence 1923). Even the candid prose of the Franciscan florilegium includes some amusing situations, especially in the life of Friar Juniper and that of Blessed Giles, while a vividness of detail lends emphasis to the moving poetry of Jacopone da Todi. This healthy representational realism continues through the varied succession of literary production in different countries. Examples include certain aspects of Italian novella-writing and Renaissance comedy, some features of humanistic production, and—where commonplace and vulgar reality acquires the dignity of artistic representation—the Spanish picaresque novels of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the anonymous Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache, and Francisco de Quevedo’s Buscón (a collection and translations edited by F. Capecchi, Florence 1953).
A more marked inclination toward V. nineteenth century. After the great Romantic flowering, the interest of the poet or man of letters shifted toward situations or events reflecting the needs, aspirations, and vicissitudes of particular social classes or of their protagonists. In France, Balzac’s novels of the Comédie humaine and those of Flaubert are, in a sense, the precursors of this tendency, but they still present a reality idealized under Romantic influence. The same applies to Dickens in England. The author most representative of this type of social and “verist” novel was instead Émile Zola, with his grandiose cycle of the Rougon-Macquart, a genuine sociological epic. Taine’s literary criticism likewise draws its inspiration from positivist principles. Maupassant’s short stories reflect the sometimes cruel or mocking aspects of reality, although the artist’s soul “very often relaxes and softens into a kind of sorrowful calm or calm sorrow, in the feeling of pity” (E. Croce, Poesia e non poesia, Bari 1923, p. 311 ff.), as do Baudelaire’s sorrowful verses. J. K. Huysmans, a disciple of Zola, followed the methods of the naturalist school in novels where his religious interest predominates (La Cathédrale, L’oblat, Les Poules de Lourdes). Some narrators employed the principles of V. in their attacks against the clergy; a typical example is the novel O crime do padre Amaro by the Portuguese writer J. M. de Eça de Queiroz. In general, throughout the countries of Europe, poetry or narrative dealing with social problems flourished in that period and consequently did not hesitate to reveal harsh details. Limiting ourselves to Italy, where the voice of the philosopher Francesco Acrì had been raised in the Tre ragionamenti contro i veristi (1881), verist writers in philosophy, politics, and poetry included, among others, Luigi Capuana, Federico De Roberto, and Matilde Serao. Of the latter, one should recall in particular the long novella Suor Giovanna della Croce, dedicated to P. Bourget, concerning the painful vicissitudes of a cloistered nun who, expelled from the convent and brought into contact with the ugliness of life, faces them with a meek spirit and Christian resignation. While remaining within the sphere of v., indeed being its master, Giovanni Verga, through his austere prose, knows how to elevate the tribulations of his characters into suffering humanity. A group of Tuscan narrators stands apart; although they began from a common naturalist foundation, their artistic interests led each of them to different conclusions. Such were Mario Pratesi, Renato Fucini, and Ferdinando Paolieri. The Sienese Federico Tozzi, though belonging to the early twentieth century, is connected with their art. A singular verist predilection is also found in the art of the early D’Annunzio (Le novelle della Pescara, Giovanni Episcopo, L’Innocente). Verist themes or situations subsequently inspired other European and extra-European writers or poets and in certain cases still remain their special province. But this does not alter the fact that, as an artistic phenomenon, every literary history can by now delineate the merits and limitations of V. BIBLICA.: V. SICILIA, Saggi sul naturalismo nella lettera, Reggio Calabria 1921; P. Arrighi, Le verisme dans la prose narrative ital., Boivin 1937; id., La poésie vériste en Italie, ibid. 1937; G. Marzot, Il v., in Questioni e correnti di storia letteraria, Milan 1949; L. Russo, in the historical introduction to the volume I narratori (1850-1950), Milan–Messina 1951. Lanfranco Fiore