Il male della scrittura. Teorie fisiologiche dell’arte

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between literature, criticism, and science in the age of Positivism, focusing on the physiological and psychopathological theories of art that emerged between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on the ideas of Taine, Zola, and literary Naturalism, the author shows how writers and critics adopted methods of observation inspired by the experimental sciences to interpret both works of art and the personalities of their creators. The essay discusses the views of Mantegazza and Lombroso, who associated artistic genius with exceptional psychological states, neuroses, or forms of mental disturbance. In this framework, writing appears both as a means of knowledge and as a possible symptom of pathology. The study also highlights the different responses of Verga, Capuana, and De Roberto, who embraced scientific methods in their analysis of reality while rejecting reductive biographical and pathological interpretations of literary works. The article ultimately reveals a complex dialogue between science and literature, in which the artist remains a privileged observer of life and human interiority rather than being reduced to a mere clinical case.