Situazione degli studi letterari su Camillo Boito (2017)

This essay retraces the history of the critical reception of Camillo Boito’s literary production (Gite di un artista, Storielle vane, Senso. Nuove storielle vane, Il maestro di setticlavio), from contemporary reviews to the recent studies released on the occasion of the first centenary of his death (2014). Due to their apparently occasional nature, Boito’s short stories have long been excluded from Italian literary canon. Only in the second post war period, after Giorgio Bassani’s edition (1945) and thanks to the international success attained by Luchino Visconti with his film adaptation of Senso (1954), critics have shown a renewed and constant interest in Boito’s novellas. Among the main issues in the debate about his literary works are his relation to Italian Scapigliatura, his personal concept of realism and the intermedial nature of his narrative production.