This thesis explores the development of the Bildungsroman in Italian narrative between 1980 and 2011 and focuses, as a case study, on seven novels by three contemporary writers: Pier Vittorio Tondelli, Sandro Veronesi, and Giuseppe Culicchia. By contrasting the idea of an end of the literary genre with the First World War, as theorised by Franco Moretti in The Way of the World (an influential study on the European Bildungsroman published in 1987), this research will aim to demonstrate that contemporary Italian literature still engages with the genre. However, this analysis will show that a traditional coming of age process is no longer possible in contemporary society and will propose a different perspective from which to observe the transition from youth to adulthood – and its representation – in Italy. Acknowledging that the postponement of adulthood has become a common trope to describe this process, this thesis will argue that, instead of a coming of age process, the male young protagonist of the novels selected faces a ‘delaying of age process’, a conscious choice to postpone his entry into an unwelcoming adult world. The first two chapters of this work will establish the methodological background on which the textual analysis conducted in the following two chapters will be based. Chapter One will develop along two complementary lines: on the one hand, by basing my discussion on Moretti’s study, I will trace the origins of the Bildungsroman and identify the elements of continuity and diversity between the traditional examples of the genre in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and its evolution in the twentieth century. On the other hand, I will study the changes undergone by youth over the centuries, especially focusing on the shaping of male identity in the first decades of the twentieth century. Chapter Two will provide the socio-historical framework of this research, drawing a picture of contemporary Italy (from the aftermath of the Second World War), which will discuss the central issues against which the ‘delaying of age process’ will be analysed: generation, family, gender roles, work environment and consumption. In Chapters Three and Four, I will read the narrative texts selected as representing that ‘delaying of age’ trend which I will identify as a specifically Italian way of coming of age in contemporary society. By focusing on the relationship between the male protagonists and the ‘other’, the textual analysis will show new ways of conceiving the process of becoming a man in contemporary Italy.

Este trabalho inicia-se com a apresentação do autor, sua importância literária e seu contexto histórico, e tem por objetivo analisar a trajetória de Aniceto Hevia, narrador autodiegético do romance Hijo de Ladrón, de Manuel Rojas. O romance se articula em torno aos problemas e experiências das classes socialmente marginalizadas e dos conflitos sociais e econômicos do proletariado no Chile entre o fim do século XIX e o início do XX. Observaremos o Bildungsroman Clássico, gênero discursivo originado na Alemanha, em meio à difusão das ideias burguesas de fins do século XVIII. O intuito aqui é observar como o livro de Rojas, inscrito em um contexto afastado pelo tempo, espaço e circunstâncias sócio econômicas do paradigma do Bildungsroman, mantém afinidades de ponto de vista e de conteúdo em relação ao gênero clássico em questão. / This work begins with the introduction to the author, to his literary importance as well as to his historical context, and it has the purpose of analyzing Hevia Anicetos pathway, who is the autodiegetic narrator in the novel Hijo de Ladrón by Manuel Rojas. The novel revolves around the problems and the experiences lived by the socially marginalized classes, and also around the social and economic conflicts experienced by the proletariat in Chile from the end of the 19th Century to the beginning of the 20th Century. We will observe the Classic Bildungsroman, which is a discursive gender originated in Germany in the midst of the dissemination of bourgeois ideas from the end of the 18th Century. Our purpose here is to observe how Rojas book, which is inserted in a context kept away by time, space and socio-economic circumstances of the Bildungsroman paradigm, maintains content and viewpoint affinities in relation to the classical gender in question.

Este trabalho inicia-se com a apresentação do autor, sua importância literária e seu contexto histórico, e tem por objetivo analisar a trajetória de Aniceto Hevia, narrador autodiegético do romance Hijo de Ladrón, de Manuel Rojas. O romance se articula em torno aos problemas e experiências das classes socialmente marginalizadas e dos conflitos sociais e econômicos do proletariado no Chile entre o fim do século XIX e o início do XX. Observaremos o Bildungsroman Clássico, gênero discursivo originado na Alemanha, em meio à difusão das ideias burguesas de fins do século XVIII. O intuito aqui é observar como o livro de Rojas, inscrito em um contexto afastado pelo tempo, espaço e circunstâncias sócio econômicas do paradigma do Bildungsroman, mantém afinidades de ponto de vista e de conteúdo em relação ao gênero clássico em questão. / This work begins with the introduction to the author, to his literary importance as well as to his historical context, and it has the purpose of analyzing Hevia Anicetos pathway, who is the autodiegetic narrator in the novel Hijo de Ladrón by Manuel Rojas. The novel revolves around the problems and the experiences lived by the socially marginalized classes, and also around the social and economic conflicts experienced by the proletariat in Chile from the end of the 19th Century to the beginning of the 20th Century. We will observe the Classic Bildungsroman, which is a discursive gender originated in Germany in the midst of the dissemination of bourgeois ideas from the end of the 18th Century. Our purpose here is to observe how Rojas book, which is inserted in a context kept away by time, space and socio-economic circumstances of the Bildungsroman paradigm, maintains content and viewpoint affinities in relation to the classical gender in question.