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...in the lowest spheres o f society is less complicated, and it is possible to observe it with greatest precision. It will only be necessaiy to leave the picture its genuine colours, and its simple drawing.

He maintains that

In order to have an exact artistic reproduction o f that slice o f reality, it is necessary to follow scrupulously the mles o f the analysis; it is necessary to be sincere in order to show the taith, since the form is so inherent in the subject, as each part o f the subject itself is necessary for the explanation of the general topic.

Certainly, there are similarities between these declarations o f Verga and the ones o f George Eliot I have quoted beforehand. Verga too aimed at a faithful, objective representation o f life; he used the terms sincere, dispassionate, precise and the image of the observer to define the novelist, while George Eliot used the mirror and the witness images. In his preface Verga also gives important hints about his subject choice. When we read his expression simple drawing w e cannot help thinking o f the simple story George Eliot wanted to write with Adam Bede: when he writes that he wants to keep the genuine ’ ' ibid. The Italian original is: ...in quelle basse sfere e ’ nieno complicato, e potra’ quindi osservarsi con maggior precisione. Basta lasciare al quadro le sue tinte schiette e tranquille, e il suo disegno semplice. ’

ibid.,p.4. The Italian original is: ‘Perche’ la riproduzione artistica di cotesti quadri sia esatta, bisogna seguire scrupolosamente le norme di questa analisi; essere sinceri per dimostrare la verita’, giacche’ la forma e ’ cosi’ inerente al soggetto, quanto ogni parte del soggetto stesso e’ necessaria alia spiegazione deir argomento generale.’

colours o f the world he is going to represent, he seems to say that he is not going to make it better than it is, that he does not want to idealise the representation o f these humble, ordinaiy people. After starting his career with novels set in the bourgeois milieu o f Northern Italy, Verga chose as the setting o f his novels the world o f ordinaiy Sicilian people leading their normal everyday life, a world he was familiar with since he was born and brought up in Sicily. One o f the main differences between Italian Verismo and French Naturalism is the fact that the latter dealt mainly with an urban environment and with those social classes related to the contemporary economic development (from the working class to the middle class), whereas the former was usually concerned with a mral and provincial milieu, and with peasants, which were the greatest part o f the Italian population. It is clear that this difference is linked to the peculiar economic and social situation o f 19**’ century Italy, where, on the one hand, the middle class was still weak, and had not entirely developed its features as the new emerging social class, and, on the other hand, the rural world was a widespread social reality. Actually, Verga’s novelle and the novels I Malavoglia and Mastro Don Gesualdo are set in Sicily and deal with ordinaiy people leading rural lives; in this regard, it is relevant to point out that he did not manage to write three novels set in a higher social context, as he had planned to do. Clearly, when he tried to deal again with the fashionable world, he encountered insurmountable difficulties because those environments did not belong to his direct experience. Thus, he could not represent them, as he had planned to do.

3) The Concept o f Truth

In the theoretical writings I have examined, both George Eliot and Giovanni Verga underline the importance that the concept o f truth had for them as novelists. I think that a clarification o f what truth meant for them as far as the creation o f a novel was concerned is important to understand the nature o f their Realism.

In the chapter XVII o f Adam Bede George Eliot writes that she wants to avoid ‘falsity’ in her novel, that ‘Falsehood is so easy, tmth so difficult’; in The Natural Historv o f German Life she talks o f ‘truthfulness’ as a value to achieve in the representation o f life. In his preface to I Malavoglia Verga describes his study as ‘sincere’; ^ he then points out that the novelist has to be sincere, to tell the truth in order to offer an exact artistic description o f life; and he mentions the word ‘truth’ once again in the course o f the preface. The insistence on the concept o f truth throws a light on George Eliot and Giovanni Verga’s peculiar attitudes towards Realism. In fact, to talk about tmthfulness and to talk about impartiality or objectivity is different. In this regard, the essay The Natural Historv o f German Life is veiy helpful. George Eliot writes:

The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelists is the extension o f our sympathies. Appeals founded on

20_{G. Eliot, Adam Bede, op. cit., p. 114} ‘ ibid.