Attraversare il modernismo, preparare il postmoderno

Gli interventi di Calvino e Celati sul “Caffè“

Abstract

The paper focuses on a number of publications by Gianni Celati and Italo Calvino that appeared in the journal «Il Caffè» in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In these texts, the two authors examine the extreme uses of literature, discussing both modernist works and texts from earlier periods. The essays under consideration advocate a move beyond neo-modernist poetics - through a comic perspective in Celati’s case and an orientation already pointing toward postmodernism in Calvino’s - and are closely connected to the contemporary reflections associated with the «Alì Babà» magazine project.