A Test of Powers: Writings on Criticism and Literary Institutions [Paperback]

A foundational work of Italian intellectual life that blends political essays and literary criticism, anticipating key debates of the New Left and exploring the intersection of ideology and literature.

Originally published in Italian in 1965,A Test of Powerswas immediately seen as one of the central texts of Italian intellectual life. By the time of the 1968 student revolts, it was clear that Franco Fortini had anticipated many of the themes and concerns of the New Left, which was no surprise, given that Fortini had spent more than two decades immersed in fierce ideological debates over anti-Fascism, organizing the alliance between progressivism and literature and other topics that found their way intoA Test of Powers. In addition to politically focused essays, the book also features writings on a range of authors who influenced Fortini, including Franz Kafka, Boris Pasternak, Eric Auerbach, Marcel Proust, and Bertolt Brecht.

Franco Fortini(1917–94) was a poet, essayist, literary critic, Marxist intellectual, and translator of Brecht, Goethe, and Kafka, among others. He is the author ofThe Dogs of Sinai, also published by Seagull Books.Alberto Toscanoteaches at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. He is the author ofFanaticism and Late Fascismand coeditor ofThe SAGE Handbook of Marxism.

Translators Introduction: The Labour of Division
Translators Acknowledgements
Preface to the First Edition (1965)
Preface to the Second Edition (1969)
PART I: The Literary Institution
I. Eroticism and Literature
II. A Test of Powers
III. Clarifications
IV. Cunning as Doves
V. Literary Institutions and the Progress of the Regime
VI. Two Avant-gardes
VII. Avant-garde and Mediation
VIII. Written and Spoken
PART II: The Condition of the Guest
I. Radeks Hands
II. The Wl£)