A complex and long undervalued literary, artistic, and social movement, the
Scapigliaturadeveloped in late nineteenth-century Italy, becoming the main actor of the post-Unification cultural scene. The term “scapigliatura”, borrowed from Cletto Arrighi’s novel
La Scapigliatura e il 6 febbraio(
The Scapigliatura and February 6th) (1862), evokes the French bohème for the irregular, at times disheveled (the very meaning of the word “scapigliato”) life-style and the antagonistic attitude towards society of many of its exponents. Although mostly members of the bourgeoisie, these intellectuals were in fact at odds with their social class and fostered a radical social transformation towards a business and proto-industrial economy, particularly in the Milan area which was the cradle of…
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Citation: Corradi, Morena. "Scapigliatura". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 March 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19320, accessed 23 November 2024.]