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Acknowledgements My first thanks go to my two dedicated and patient supervisors, Ann Caesar and Judy Rawson, who have shown consistent support and interest over the period ofmy study. I would also like to extend my warm thanks to all the members ofthe <strong>Warwick</strong> Italian department, past and present, in particular Jennifer Lorch and Loredana Polezzi, who have always shown an interest in my work and provided me with excellent examples to follow. Marie Lucas and Josie Williams, departmental secretaries, were also very supportive. I would like to thank all colleagues in Italian Studies elsewhere who have entered into a dialogue with my work, particularly Gillian Ania, Donatella de Ferra and Mavina Papini. The excellent teaching ofMartin McLaughlin, Richard Sheppard and Nicoletta Simborowski gave me the initial groundwork for this thesis, and all three have continued to encourage me. I am grateful to the authors Paola Capriolo and Francesca Duranti for speaking to me and patiently dealing with my questions about their work. My thanks also to go to my family for a lifetime ofunfaltering support and inspiration and to my friends: Teresa, Annabel and Floraine, for practical help and a sense of humour. Finally my gratitude to Matt for an infinite supply ofpatience and for whom a further three years in a PhD household must have seemed at times an extended prison sentence. Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and confirm that it has not been submitted for a degree at another university. ii
Abstract Unmanned Territories: Contemporary Italian Women Writers and the Intertextual Space of Fantastic Fiction The thesis examines how somewomen writers of fiction relate to the question of literary traditionin the 1980sand 1990s. Contemporary literary practice appears to be dominated by postmodern anxiety about a state of 'late arrival' as writers. I wish to explore how womenwriters' experience of the weight of literary predecessors is affected by their different subject position. I chooseto site this study within the area of fantastic fiction for several reasons. The fantastic tradition in Italy was largely overlooked by the criticsuntil the 1980s- a factor which has exacerbated the neglect ofwomen's contribution to it. More importantly the fantastic is now vaunted by contemporary criticism as an area conducive to transgressive challenges to traditional literary practice, particularly for women writers. At the same time, however, the traditional tropes ofthe predominantly male-authored canon of fantastic literature offer a problematic and challenging range of gender stereotypes for female authorsto 'rewrite'. I choose to focus on the notion of spaceboth literally and metaphorically in the development ofthis thesis. In the opening chapterI tease out the threads which connectspace, Italianwomenwriters and the fantastic. I beginby showing that the fantastic itselfis often construed spatially as a genre and offerspotential for spatial innovation. This suggests a subtler way of looking at womenwriters' use of literary models, which avoidsfalling into simplistic analyses of gender portrayal. I then outline the position of womenwriters in Italyin relation to the genre ofthe fantastic. I suggest that the missing sense ofa womenwriters' tradition in this genre maybe one reason why the fantastic is used to explore self-consciously the relation betweenthe female writer and the maleauthored text. Finally I show how the fantastic offerswomen a space in which to re-write, namely through their manipulation ofthe literal and metaphorical spaces ofthe text. The following two chaptersexecutethis studywith close reference to texts by four authors. The secondchapter is dedicated to the early fiction ofPaola Capriolo whoseexperience ofliterary traditionas a particularly claustrophobic space inspired this thesis. I agree with the widely heldviewthat her use ofa Gothic-oriented fantastic, which privileges a world ofenclosure in labyrinthine interiors, reflects a typically postmodernanxiety about the end ofliterature. I argue howeverthat the anxiety ofthe writer's relationto literature is more closely linked to her identification with a predominantly male literary tradition. This givesher writingsome interesting links with muchearlier examples ofwomen's writing. It also providesan interesting springboard from whichto look at the treatmentofsimilar themes ofenclosure in work by other women writers. The final chapter follows the emergence of new models ofthe fantastic in the work ofthe writers FrancescaDuranti, RossanaOmbres and Laura Mancinelli. I suggestthat in their work we see a contemporary use ofthe fantastic 'al femminile' which juxtaposes the external space with the internal space, giving rise to the recurrent motifoftravel. I argue that this use of the fantastic genre pushes the genre in a new direction, towards a space in which the internal fantasy and dialogue co-exist. iii
Page 1 and 2: University of Warwick institutional
Page 3: Contents Acknowledgements 11 Declar
Page 7 and 8: INTRODUCTION 'La musica degli altri
Page 9 and 10: with the text of the past, which in
Page 11 and 12: juxtaposition and comparison. Their
Page 13 and 14: divergence in period, style and phi
Page 15 and 16: (Irigaray) non SI puo In ogni caso
Page 17: texts concern the textual enclosure
Page 20 and 21: grande Eulalia' finds her mental sp
Page 22 and 23: write, neither author nor protagoni
Page 24 and 25: spaces by wandering in between and
Page 26 and 27: Professor in Medieval German Philol
Page 28: 'anything goes'. The generic space
Page 31 and 32: function' of the text in relation t
Page 33 and 34: soprannaturale.Y' It is no longer p
Page 35 and 36: Thus the threshold position of the
Page 37: through this Law. It will also be w
Page 41: i.ii. The Microcosm of Literature '
Page 44 and 45: epresentation and an emphasis on th
Page 46 and 47: literary metaphor can mean the poss
Page 48: practitioners and a marginalization
Page 51 and 52: Indeed those twentieth century writ
Page 53 and 54: theory about the postmodem success
Page 55 and 56:
Frankenstein belittles Mary's work
Page 57 and 58:
eader is a trace ofa latent vocatio
Page 59 and 60:
also be possible to see this quiet
Page 61 and 62:
Pygmalion theme in relation to Fran
Page 63:
end of her analysis with references
Page 66 and 67:
Such a theory proposes that women w
Page 68 and 69:
Seeing the potential for the fantas
Page 70:
understanding of the sexed and gend
Page 73 and 74:
ease with woman through its self-co
Page 75 and 76:
CHAPTER TWO Mirror, mirror on the w
Page 77 and 78:
opening up new dimensions or spaces
Page 79 and 80:
'La grande Eulalia' 'Je fennerai pa
Page 81 and 82:
crowds, also singing sweetly (as he
Page 83:
'lacking' in relation to the man, a
Page 86 and 87:
mystery for the female subject from
Page 88 and 89:
eason, but very little has been mad
Page 90 and 91:
eturns to his cavern underground wh
Page 93 and 94:
the home ofthe new governor's famil
Page 95 and 96:
with it may differ radically betwee
Page 97 and 98:
observers, a woman pianist would gi
Page 99 and 100:
empty-headed and trivial. Adele's r
Page 101 and 102:
One might argue that whilst the enc
Page 103 and 104:
ii. The female paradox of 'il falso
Page 105 and 106:
her inner turmoil, up until the nig
Page 107 and 108:
The marked autobiographical content
Page 109 and 110:
epresentation of the self such as t
Page 111 and 112:
possibilities of the novel are atte
Page 113 and 114:
traditional pattern of the autobiog
Page 115 and 116:
previous self behind through writin
Page 117 and 118:
ole of imitator and translator unle
Page 119 and 120:
very much upon the traditional noti
Page 121 and 122:
emphasizing the oneiric in particul
Page 123 and 124:
suspension of historical-geographic
Page 125 and 126:
disturbing element appears in domes
Page 127 and 128:
authored models make the hotel the
Page 129 and 130:
The overlap between these two forms
Page 131 and 132:
The narrator's writing provides the
Page 133 and 134:
the unconscious and conscious illus
Page 135 and 136:
The desire to return to oneself, to
Page 137 and 138:
finds herself confronted by a wall:
Page 139 and 140:
The endorsement ofa third invisible
Page 141 and 142:
female life-giving powers. However
Page 143 and 144:
femminile', which she has speculate
Page 145 and 146:
fiercer will be her struggle with n
Page 147 and 148:
they are allowed to fade - or are s
Page 149 and 150:
volta.'(Menzogna, p.21). She too th
Page 151 and 152:
Mi pare ormai [...] incredibile di
Page 153 and 154:
eflection of the author. The narrat
Page 155 and 156:
this non-existent space beyond gend
Page 157 and 158:
Duranti's portraits ofmodem men see
Page 159 and 160:
complexity, depth and female specif
Page 161 and 162:
window of his flat until he has fin
Page 163 and 164:
The fact that the novel opens on Fa
Page 165 and 166:
something that does indeed create p
Page 167 and 168:
than some kind of therapeutic worki
Page 169 and 170:
two negatives. Like a double agent
Page 171 and 172:
his childhood, is never going to ma
Page 173 and 174:
this symbolic origin that he wishes
Page 175 and 176:
abstract level "entry into enclosed
Page 177 and 178:
etween Fabrizio and Mario. In each
Page 179 and 180:
The fact that the text comes to lif
Page 181 and 182:
disable her at every turn and becom
Page 183 and 184:
In attempting to strike a balance b
Page 185 and 186:
igata eterogenea - un uomo vivo, un
Page 187 and 188:
controlled destiny. The theme of de
Page 189 and 190:
addressed to her students, recounts
Page 191 and 192:
caso un oggetto di cui non riuscivo
Page 193 and 194:
as though the loosening of spatial
Page 195 and 196:
possibilities, which could be ofuse
Page 197 and 198:
II s' ensuit que pour retrouver la
Page 199 and 200:
contrast Ombres' formation as a poe
Page 201 and 202:
novels, particularly the roles of e
Page 203 and 204:
'scarabangeli', whose mutations and
Page 205 and 206:
the textual prison, in their very d
Page 207 and 208:
protagonist's death and re-birth in
Page 209 and 210:
countryside it barely holds at bay
Page 211 and 212:
family tragedy hangs heavily in the
Page 213 and 214:
several occasions to childhood scen
Page 215 and 216:
self and private self. The name 'Sa
Page 217 and 218:
The whole novel is therefore tantal
Page 219 and 220:
Significantly she looks to fantasti
Page 221 and 222:
apparent rational basis of the one
Page 223 and 224:
petrifaction or dissolution of the
Page 225 and 226:
time, not in the union oflovers, bu
Page 227 and 228:
Satriano, the relation to food ofte
Page 229 and 230:
Chodorow claims that 'The basic fem
Page 231 and 232:
delle pietre larghe e pesanti.'(La
Page 233 and 234:
for a long time he evades the move
Page 235:
The terror of enclosure is diminish
Page 238 and 239:
novel, which in turn emphasize the
Page 240 and 241:
form of a dialogue with the traditi
Page 242 and 243:
eventually take control of the rela
Page 244 and 245:
question associated as it is with c
Page 246:
sexual liaisons with local girls, f
Page 249 and 250:
initiator of events, subtly subvert
Page 251 and 252:
lesson in poetry which his Imam had
Page 253 and 254:
Conclusion Ma davvero per uscire di
Page 255 and 256:
the male is forced to recognize the
Page 257 and 258:
Bibliography Primary Texts Capriolo
Page 259 and 260:
Brooke-Rose, Christine, A Rhetoric
Page 261 and 262:
De Stefano, Antonino, 'Le leggende
Page 263 and 264:
Isotta, Paolo, Il ventriloquo di Di
Page 265 and 266:
Parati, Graziella, Public History:
Page 267:
Wood, Sharon, Italian Women's Writi
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