Giovanni Verga: Verismo from Sicily to Milan

Giovanni Verga (Catania, 2 September 1840 – Catania, 27 January 1922) was a leading figure and initiator of Italian Verismo, a literary movement inspired by French Naturalism that emerged between 1875 and 1895. Born into a family of small landowners in Catania, his humble origins are reflected in his most famous works, such as the collection Vita dei campi (featuring characters like Rosso Malpelo) and the novel I Malavoglia. Verga's artistic evolution was shaped by his time in several Italian cities: Sicily, marked by uprisings like the revolt against the grist tax suppressed by General Nino Bixio; Florence, then capital of the Kingdom of Italy and a hub for intellectuals; and Milan, crucial for the development of his new poetics. The Positivist faith in science and experimental method underpinned Verismo, whose key exponents were Verga and Luigi Capuana. The movement's 'poetics of the true' aimed to narrate real events directly, using estrangement, impersonality, and free indirect discourse to let the popular collective viewpoint emerge. Language mirrored the simple, proverbial, sometimes dialectal speech of everyday life. Verga achieved fame while still alive, as evidenced by Luigi Pirandello's speech at the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania in September 1920 on Verga's 80th birthday. Verga died on 27 January 1922.