Il sapere del romanzo

Abstract

This paper deals with the peculiar knowledge that comes from novels and literary fiction. The nineteenth century tradition, from Balzac on, has consacrated the novel among the literary genres which are entitled to explore the social costumes, the historical and psychological truths of mankind.Fictional writing has been able to incorporate from philosophical thinking to chronicle into stories that are meaningful and powerful from an asthetical point of view. But nowadays with all the information that comes from the web, what kind of knowledge do we look for while reading a novel?As a reader and a writer myself I find that what is peculiar to novels is a knowledge connected with a time experience. To support my thesis I consider the “Giardino dei Finzi-Contini” by Giorgio Bassani and “I soldati di Salamina” by Javier Cercas, as two examples of novel which deal with History and yet do not focus on it, but rather on the individual experience of it that each character goes through.