| This is the first substantial study of the idea of magic in Italian and French literary and art criticism of the interwar period. Studies on this subject have mainly concerned Andre Breton, who prized the unconscious as an answer to the disenchantment of the modern world. Yet this was not the only version of magic proposed in the interwar period. On the contrary, French critics writing on magic found much of their fiercest (and most energizing) opposition in the competing views of Italian writers and artists. For the Italians, the unconscious was a realm of unchecked irrationality and aimless creativity; instead they argued for a "magic realism" that heightened realism with brief jolts of fantasy.;In this study I reconstruct and critique the Franco-Italian discussion of magic in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Current scholarship on magic in the interwar period has been limited by its insularity and French-oriented orthodoxy. Using periodicals, literature of the period, and archival material, such as correspondence and publishing houses' records, I aim to shed new light on the forgotten dialogue that flourished between these two countries when they faced fascism and World War II. A comparative perspective on this subject is long overdue.;Chapter one provides the historical and cultural context of my research. Chapter two offers an unprecedented comparative reading of Bontempelli's Magic Realism and Breton's Surrealism. Chapter three examines magic in art, focusing in particular on differing Italian and French interpretations of Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Paolo Uccello, and Piero di Cosimo; Soupault, Breton, and Pudelko are contrasted with Bontempelli, Carrieri, and other Italian critics. Chapter four considers the writings in Malaparte's journal Prospettive on Italy and French Surrealism, along with Contini's seminal anthology Italie magique.;Overall, I argue that the idea of magic was not only essential to art, literature, and criticism of the interwar period, but also helped France and Italy to explore a balance between fantasy and reality, freedom and order, national identity and multiculturalism, rationality and the unconscious, and tradition and the avant-garde. |
