A Test of Names: Franco Fortini and Primo Levi on the Language of Anti-Fascism

Abstract

The 1960s and 1970s witnessed intense debates over the definition of fascism and the practice of anti-fascism among Italian communist and left-wing intellectuals. This article explores the political problem of how to name fascism, and the related issue of anti-fascist language, by homing in on the writings of poet and critic Franco Fortini – who debated the question of the ‘new fascism’ with Pier Paolo Pasolini – and the multiple efforts by Primo Levi to rethink the meaning of anti-fascism in the face of fascism's capacity to mutate under changing historical and political conditions.