Reflection of the Era of “Economic Boomˮ in the Works of Italo Calvino

Abstract

This article is devoted to the problem of representation of the Italian economic boom of the 1950s–1960s in literary texts. The period of the “economic boom&8j1; not only gave rise to a lively controversy in Italian society but also was reflected in many literary works. Literary Italy was gradually abandoning the poetics of neorealism and turning to new literary forms that made it possible to reflect changes in the public consciousness. Thus, in the 1950s, Italo Calvino moves from the neorealist period in his work to a new, so-called philosophical-fantastic phase. The works of Calvino, which had always contained reflection of the processes taking place in his contemporary society, since the 1950s, were largely devoted to understanding the era of the “economic miracle&8j1; and the consumer society generated by it. Topics such as environmental pollution, the creation of artificial reality, instead of a natural one, are reflected in the book “Marcovaldo, or the Seasons in the City&8j1;, the story “Smog&8j1;, the novel “Invisible Cities&8j1;. The writer embodied the image of a man in the era of consumption in the last part of the trilogy “Our Ancestors&8j1; – “The Nonexistent Knight &8j1;.