Sulla genesi del medium romanzo = On the genesis of the novel as a medium

Abstract

The genesis of the modern novel lasted for a long time: from stabilizing of the individuals' society and the Gutenberg Galaxy to the metropolis rise in the 19th century. This contribution aims to identify some paths of mediologic research, relating the aesthetic form's evolution of written fiction in the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries with the cultural structures' incubation of the industrial world. Topics include: the succession of genres promoting the extension of cultural patterns through "serial machines"; the literary re-mediation of experience not based on the sense of sight; the growth of spectacular virtuality; the relationship between narration, forecasting, "uncanny", and fear. Finally, a first historical-geographical sketch is attempted by reconstructing an almost never completely described process.