Abstract
The essay examines the book Alla scoperta dei letterati (1895), in whoch the journalist Ugo Ojetti interviewied 26 Italian writers, poets and playwrights asking their opinion on the condition of Italian literature of the period. Ojetti's book is an interesting document of guard-changing in Italian literature, it reveals in particular a negative reaction against the poetics of Naturalism and Verism and its exponents, realized under the banner of the so-called "Knights of the Spirit" influenced by mysticism and esoterism.
The majority of writers also raised the issue of the absence of a modern Italian literary languege and the decadence of literary style. The most significant personalities of the period result to be Giovanni Verga and Gabriele D'Annunzio.
The response to their works in the Italian literary context id nevertheless evaluable only with temporal distance.