| This dissertation reassesses the literary and theatrical work of Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), by putting it in dialogue with the philosophical pessimism and aesthetics of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). By examining the way in which Pirandello's modernist fiction draws inspiration from and re-figures Schopenhauer's worldview, I show how his unique aesthetic of the ambivalent character connects the modernist "revolt" against 19th -century realism to earlier moments in Europe's intellectual history. On one side, this rearticulation connects Pirandello's modernism to the tradition of German-idealist aesthetics running from Jena romanticism to French decadentism, distinguishing Pirandello's work from that of his avant-garde contemporaries, like the Futurists. At the same time, Pirandello's multifaceted relation to 19th- and 20th-century intellectual and literary traditions is further complicated by his own fascination with the Renaissance-era elaboration of the visual grotesque. Examining these complexities, I add further nuance to our critical understanding of Pirandello's modernism, which I argue constitutes not only a response to modern crisis in the form of a rupture but also an interesting node of historical and aesthetic continuity and transformation. Likewise, my reading contributes to the scholarship on Schopenhauer's legacy and its role in shaping the aesthetic thought and fiction of the fin de siecle and the modernist period. |
