Fosca is a novel by I. U. Tarchetti, representative of the Milanese Scapigliatura. Unfinished at the death of the author, it was completed by his friend Salvatore Farina.
It tells the love story between a young army officer and an intelligent and sensitive woman, but very ugly and sick.
It’ is clear the distortion of the sentimental romantic cliché (he handsome, honest and valiant; her young, beautiful and pure), but, in addition, there is the attempt of a materialistic analysis of the loving feelings, even from a clinical point of view. The work represents a sharp break with the narrative view of that period (the first years of the Unification of Italy), dominated by the example of Manzoni, that also feels the influence of Baudelaire and, through it, of E. A. Poe. Tarchetti follows also the example of Naturalism, especially Zola, evident in the representation of love as fatal disease. The style is discontinuous, while the narrative structure is linear and follows a climax of a tragedy. Remarkable is the setting both external (livid and void landscapes) and internal (the medical clinic of the barracks, that is, paradoxically, the place of amorous encounters).