The Art and the Representation of Reality: on Pirandello and Imitation

This paper aims to examine the problem of imitation in Luigi Pirandello’s critical and theoretical works (from his first articles, published in the late XIXth century, to the volumes Arte e scienza and L’umorismo, 1908), in order to analyse the role plaid by the author in the wider context of Modernism. On the one hand, it will be illustrated the importance of mimesis for Pirandello’s opinion on contemporary literature, especially with regard to Naturalism and Neoidealism. On the other hand, it will be explained how the issue of imitation – tightly connected to the concept of ‘rhetoric’ – provided a strong stimulus to Pirandello’s idea of humorism.