Ercolino, Stefano. The Novel-Essay: 1884-1947

Stefano Ercolino theorizes “the novel-essay as the symbolic form of the crisis of modernity” (xv) and literary form as “a signifying structure that emerges in order to answer, on the aesthetic plane, specific symbolic needs posed by history” (xvi). To demonstrate these two theses, Ercolino discusses literature as one of many contextual forces, along with philosophy, history, music, and art, and shows that certain tendencies have led, in specific contexts, to the generation and sustainment of contingent artistic forms. The project is ambitious and the result convincing.