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writer - as a narrative space. The fantastic, which presupposes ruptures in the
relationship between the self and its everyday world, is an appropriate mode in which
to look for traces ofthis reconfiguration.
The critic must work to foster ways of understanding women's writing if it is
to be guaranteed a place in the literary mainstream, by developing a new language of
criticism which is still widely regarded as absent. 32 Any contribution, however small,
to the growing list of innovative studies of women's writing necessarily draws upon
an eclectic synthesis of approaches to create this critical language. Making the
connection between gender and writing shifts every critical approach to a text. In the
first chapter therefore I attempt to tease out some ofthe individual threads which run
through this particular study, marking out the ways in which they will be re-woven
later in the study. First I develop a working theory ofthe fantastic for the purposes of
this thesis. I allow this theory to be coloured by the texts themselves and examine the
impact of space, both literal and cultural, in the development of the genre. I follow
this with a brief survey of the history of the fantastic genre in Italy, and women
writers' role in that history. Subsequently I look at contemporary theories of the
female fantastic, considering the extent to which this genre may present Italian
women writers with problems and possibilities for the forging of a relation to the
canon. I look with particular interest at the chances of a dialogue with a femaleauthored
canon, which have to date been relatively slight in Italy.33 Finally I examine
briefly the relevance of psychoanalytical theory to an understanding of women
writers' use ofthe fantastic as an intertextual space.
In the second chapter I choose to concentrate upon the younger writer, Paola
Capriolo, using her early work in particular as a litmus test. I believe that the
difficulty she presents when one attempts to align her work with that ofother women
writers is the key to understanding the textual space of the female fantastic. Her early
32 'Cutrufelli argues that the patrimony of older women writers is less easily transferred because their
works have always been studied according to non-literary criteria, including that of fmding their
feminine qualities which are idiosyncratically defined and rarely in relationship to one another. Thus
she recommends a genealogy of structures and forms that would show how women have expressed
their political, sexual and personal concerns and how their writings differ from those of men. A
genealogy constructed in this manner would be communicable, transmittable, and, above all, literary.'
(Carol Lazzaro-Weis, p.52)
33 As JoAnn Canon writes in Italian Women Writersfrom the Renaissance to the Present, 'Indeed,
Rasy goes so far as to suggest that the tendency of women writers to look to the works ofother women
writers as a natural point ofreference is one of the common threads linking all women writers. Whether
contemporary Italian women writers will embrace this notion and defme themselves vis-a-vis other
women writers remains to be seen.' (p.20)
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