SOURCE: "Struggles, War, Revolution and Literature in Some Stories by Italo Svevo," in Literature and Revolution, edited by David Bevan, Editions Rodopi, 1989, pp. 63-71.

In the following essay, Saccone points to the continuous use of dramatic struggle in Svevo's work as a way to illustrate "literature as correction of life. "

"Una lotta" ("A Struggle") is the title of the first story by Italo Svevo, a text of 1888, more exactly a text published in the issues of January 6, 7, and 8 of L'In-dipendente, a Triestine newspaper. It is appropriate, and almost emblematic, that the long and very consistent discourse carried on by this writer for almost forty years begins with such a word. Word and theme are to be found continuously thereafter in his texts: to mention only one example, in the conclusion of his major novel, La coscienza di Zeno: "Ammetto che per avere la persuasione della salute il mio...