La imaginación literaria del lector

The reader’s literary imagination: Ítalo Calvino

Abstract

This article presents an analysis about the way in which Italo Calvino treats the reader’s figure in his literary work. The essays and articles compiled in Punto y aparte, Por qué leer los clásicos, Seis propuestas para el próximo milenio y Mundo escrito y mundo no escrito, and the letters included in Los libros de los otros. Correspondencia (1947-1981) y Correspondencia (1940-1985). El Castillo de los destinos cruzados, Las ciudades invisibles, El Barón Rampante y Si una noche de invierno un viajero and Palomar are also taken as references. The existence of the reader in the work of the Italian writer is reflected in three  ways in the narrative game: first, as essay writer and lecturer who recreates an intertextual strategy. Second, as a literary character who participates of the narrative fiction world  and third, as a self reference construction of the narrative world.  The article is developed from  three perspectives: from the particular features of the literary imagination in Calvino, from the narrative world of the reader and from the reader’s literary game. For Calvino, the reader participates in the narrative world from the literary imagination as a source of creation and recreation.