italian studies, Vol. 68 No. 2, July 2013, 230–45 © The Society for Italian Studies 2013 DOI 10.1179/0075163413Z.00000000041 Metaliterary Fogazzaro: Bovarysme and Mysticism in Malombra (1881) Olivia Santovetti University of Leeds This article analyses how Fogazzaro’s own elaboration of the theory of the evolution of species (as a mystical and ascensional vision of the world) influenced his theory of the novel and had an impact on his activity as writer. In particular, the article concentrates on the innovative elements of Malombra, Fogazzaro’s first and highly successful novel. It argues that Fogazzaro used the cliché of the woman reader to postulate an affinity between the experience of reading (and more in general the aesthetic experience) and the mystical rapture: a totalizing experience, detached from reality and beyond rational thinking in which the self dissolves its bounda- ries and experiences a sense of fusion and identity loss. The importance given to the act of reading and writing as aesthetic and mystical experiences is seen as the ground in which Fogazzaro’s literary experimentation, which is here anticipating modernist approaches, meets and is enriched by his theological Modernism. keywords Bovarysm, mysticism, female reader, hysteria, unconscious, Evolutionism I. A project of religious, and literary, modernization A discourse on the relationship between religion and culture in fin de siècle Italy would not be complete without consideration of the works and activity of Antonio Fogazzaro (1842–1911). Fogazzaro was the writer who brought to the forefront, and to a wider public, the debate on the problems of contemporary religion in Italy. He was a writer who should be given credit, as Paolo Rossi has demonstrated, for his attempt to update the Christian vision of the world to the needs of modernity. 1 Fogazzaro’s aims took their expression in his successful novels and also through his activity as a public lecturer and essay writer and, later in life, through his work as a religious reformer. The religious dimension is introduced in Fogazzaro’s novels by the theme of love, Fogazzaro’s literary forte. The dilemma between amore sacro and amor profano, 1 Paolo Rossi, ‘Introduzione’ to Antonio Fogazzaro, Ascensioni umane. Teoria dell’evoluzione e filosofia cristiana (Milan: Longanesi, 1977), pp. 7–44. 68-2-230-ITS 37 Santovetti.indd 230 68-2-230-ITS 37 Santovetti.indd 230 5/9/2013 1:54:14 PM 5/9/2013 1:54:14 PM