Come farebbe Auerbach? Realismo postmoderno e separazione degli stili

Auerbach died in 1957. In 1957 there were but hints of what was to become postmodernism. Thus it would perhaps seem idle to pose a question about Auerbach’s approach to the new phaenomenon, even if he had lived longer. However, if one considers some postmodernist slogans such as the hybridization of genres, the blurring of any distinctions between high and low culture, kitsch becoming cult, the seriousness with which the ephemeral is treated and the lightness in writing about serious matters, Auerbach’s Stilmischung theory might seem the appropriate analytical tool to cope with postmodernity. Thus we may proceed : first of all is the intersection between history and style – the very base of Auerbach’s great enterprise – still important, and practicable ? There are no easy answers. Of course one would be tempted to say no, it isn’t : given Auerbach’s habitus – to use Bourdieu’s definition – he would have had nothing to do with the new cultural dominant feature. Like Adorno he might have considered it as the expression of the impossibility to distinguish between reality and simulacra in the new world we can only perceive through mass communication. And yet this answer would not take into consideration a return of Realism and of a serious approach to reality, to dargestellte Wirklichkeit in art and literature alike. I am going to deal with this using Auerbach’s tools and his analysis of the great realistic novels of the nineteenth century for a comparative reading of the novels of Saviano, Aldo Nove, Houellebeq and Martin Amis as the prototypes of new realism in postmodernity.