The liberal imagination of Giovanni Verga: verismo as moral realism

In this article, I argue that Verga's verismo should be seen against the backdrop of the writings of the meridionalisti, the public intellectuals and political reformers in post-Unification Italy concerned with the country's South, as well as of his own early works. Although scholars have long established the influence of the meridionalisti on Verga's verismo, the way in which he breaks from the basic pattern of their moral imaginary has not been explored. By looking at texts by the meridionalisti, I will show how these social scientists were unable to come to terms with the two main features of modern Italy's moral landscape, namely pluralism and the heterogeneity of values. More specifically, it is their Romantic nationalism that prevents the meridionalisti from perceiving those features. And this is where Verga departs from his sources, as well as from his own early narrative fiction. Verga's verismo is better understood as a form of moral realism, which fully acknowledges the pluralism and heterogeneity of the modern moral experience.