Forma, ricezione, sociologia, mondo: alcuni quesiti aperti sulla morfologia del contemporaneo

This working paper represents the first result of the research group in Morfologia del contemporaneo within the Osservatorio sul romanzo contemporaneo. The article begins by examining two main paths of the contemporary novel: the first continues the presence of postmodern aesthetics within movements such as Metamodernism; the second considers the influence of digital cultures, which led to the emergence of genres such as Cyberpunk and Avant-Pop. The contribution draws on the reflections of critics such as Jago Morrison and Theodore Martin, who discuss the adaptation of literary criticism to a novelistic landscape characterized by fluidity between genres and media. The second section attempts to isolate some morphological dominants that govern narrative devices in western contemporary novel. After a brief consideration about the epistemic framework, a textual analysis of some excerpts is made. Subsequently, some persistent structures such as the omniscient narration, you-narrative and narration in the present tense are briefly discussed. A provisional interpretation is then proposed. The third paragraph aims to highlight the impact of material condition of production on the formal organization of the contemporary cultural product. In fact, analysing the commercial system through which literature circulates, as well as its public reception, could be useful to understand better the morphological composition of the contemporary novel. The last paragraph questions the contemporary universe of fruition, which appears as medialised and heteromorphic, pervaded by storytelling, «hypomediality» and «hypermediality» phenomena. This context calls for an inquiry of the literary reading experience, exploring the possibility of dialogue between cognitive analysis of reading and critical interpretation.