I “fatti di Bronte” (1860) e un “monumento” del realismo letterario: Libertà di Giovanni Verga

Abstract

Giovanni Verga’s short story Libertà has often been read as a historical source, and its alleged alterations of the historical events of 1860, the bloody revolt in the town of Bronte, on Mount Etna, and the repression carried out by Garibaldi’s troops led by Nino Bixio (the ‘facts of Bronte’) have been noted, even sharply, with the authority of Leonardo Sciascia. We propose here an interpretation of this short story as a literary “monument”, and not as a “document”, noting the immanent tension towards a “truth content” to which Verga’s realism aspires, with its narrative proxy, the renunciation of authorial judgement, the multiplicity of points of view, the friction that derives from their juxtaposition in the narrative also with respect to the perspectives of the readers, who are necessarily called upon to assume responsibility.