Though initially not a critical success,
I Malavoglia[The House by the Medlar Tree], Giovanni Verga’s 1881 novel, came to be considered a canonical work of Italian literature and firmly established its author as the father of
verismo(Italian Realism). The story of a family of Sicilian fishermen who struggle to improve their economic and social standing, it was the first in a proposed series of novels called
I Vinti[The Vanquished], an homage to French Naturalist authors like Emile Zola and Gustave Flaubert. As described in his preface to
I Malavoglia, through these novels Verga set out to trace the “ricercar del meglio” (
I Malavoglia, 41) [search for betterment (
The House by the Medlar Tree, xvii)] as it traverses the social classes, beginning with the Malavoglia family, who…
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Citation: Amatangelo, Susan. "I Malavoglia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 September 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11303, accessed 23 November 2024.]
