Scar Narrative — Sore Narrative: The Liquidation of Realism in D’Annunzio's Giovanni Episcopo and L'Innocente

In the years 1880-1894, D'Annunzio actively took part in the debate on the future of the novel and in the transition between realism and decadence. This article argues that D'Annunzio's "battle of realism" is fought between two texts, Giovanni Episcopo and L'Innocente, closely composed in 1891, and that it can be best brought to light by comparing the two novels against a psychoanalytical ghost text common to both in which two different events take place: castration in Giovanni Episcopo and fetishism (as argued by Barbara Spackman) in L'Innocente