"A new small world"

…It was the same year that his contemporary, Berga, published his masterpiece of verism, The Malaboglios, but Fogazzaro pursued an anti-naturalistic world of novels, strongly colored by romanticism and marked by aristocratic tastes, and became a master of religious mysticism. The problems of the compatibility of Catholic faith and science, especially the theory of evolution, and the conflict between religious and sensual love, which are already evident in his earlier works, were discussed in criticism and became the main themes of his later tetralogy, namely his masterpieces The Old Little World (1895), The New Little World (1900), The Saints (1905), and Leila (1911). The last two works were even included in the Church's Index of Prohibited Books, but they were basically conservative bourgeois literature that did not go beyond the bounds of Catholicism. At the time, he was highly praised alongside D'Annunzio, but today he is not highly regarded. [Kazuhiro Hayashi] …

*Some of the terminology used in "New Small World" is listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…おりしも同世代のベルガがベリズモ(真実主義)の最高傑作《マラボリア家の人々》を世に問うた年にあたるが，フォガッツァーロの方は，ロマン主義の色濃い，貴族趣味も顕著な，反自然主義の小説世界を追求し，宗教的神秘主義の大家となった。前期の諸作品にもすでにうかがわれる，カトリックの信仰と科学とりわけ進化論の両立，宗教的愛と官能的愛の葛藤の問題は，評論で論じられたほか，後期の四部作，すなわち代表作の《古き小さな世界》(1895)，《新しき小さな世界》(1900)，《聖者》(1905)，《レイラ》(1911)の主要テーマとなり，最後の2作は教会の禁書目録に載ったりもしたが，基本的にはカトリシズムの枠を出ない保守的なブルジョアの文学であり，当時はダンヌンツィオとならんでおおいにもてはやされたが，今日その評価は低い。【林 和宏】。…

※「《新しき小さな世界》」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報