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A LITERARY MODEL in NIEVO, TARCHETTI, and SVEVO By THE MOTHER, THE BELOVED, AND THE THIRD WOMAN—SYMBOLIC EXCHANGES: A LITERARY MODEL IN NIEVO, TARCHETTI, AND SVEVO by ANGELA POLIDORI-SCORDO-NOYA B.A., Loretto Heights College, 1975 M.A., University of Denver, 1982 A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Comparative Literature 2012 This thesis entitled: The Mother, the Beloved, and the Third Woman—Symbolic Exchanges: A Literary Model in Nievo, Tarchetti, and Svevo written by Angela Polidori-Scordo-Noya has been approved for the Department of Comparative Literature Valerio Ferme Dorothea Olkowski Karen Jacobs Eric White Suzanne Magnanini Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above-mentioned discipline. IRB protocol # ____________________ iii Abstract Polidori-Scordo-Noya, Angela (Ph.D., Comparative Literature) The Mother, the Beloved, and the Third Woman—Symbolic Exchanges: A Literary Model in Nievo, Tarchetti and Svevo Thesis directed by Professor Valerio Ferme The process of representation, which has been diagnosed at the root of our Western drive to know, according to modern thinkers, is inseparable from the imperial speaking subject. Such realization has led to a crisis in subjectivity that has forced us to question notions that in the past have anchored our sense of legitimacy. In literature, this crisis has been articulated as the dissolutions of the paternal fiction, understood as the guarantor of our heritage. In response to this crisis, however, we have turned away from the parental metaphor and searched for new spaces in which this loss can be reaffirmed—and these spaces, which are often represented as disruptive, have been ironically gendered feminine. This research project explores a literary model whose mechanics in the text position the feminine via forms of negation or plot inconsistencies. The purpose is to lay bare a crucial preoccupation that can be traced back and interrelated to the political, social, literary, and/or religious problems that are plaguing authors who unconsciously incorporate this model in their text. In constructing and displacing gender relations, these writers not only lay bare the problems of their society, but at the same time displace them in order to propose more democratic options for the unsatisfactory state of current affairs. The point at issue is how this model operates, on both overt and covert levels, to unveil iv and displace the dominant ideology and how it accomplishes this by appropriating and displacing specific gendered power relations in order to promote something new. It is therefore no coincidence that the unconscious textual mechanics found in these texts lend themselves to a psychoanalytic reading that centers on trauma and repression, as evidenced by the work of Sigmund Freud and Gilles Deleuze’s theories on repetition. v Acknowledgments In the course of writing this dissertation, I have turned numerous times for assistance to my friend and mentor Dorothea Olkowski, whose guidance and knowledge have enabled me to bring this project to a close. It was her insisting enthusiasm, her never-ending love for learning, and her excellent scholarship that kept me going, even during moments when I thought I was never going to successfully bring this project to a close. My most heartfelt thanks also goes to my colleague, Susan Walters, for making sure that my minisabbatical was approved so that I could set aside the necessary time to work on this project. Many thanks to my dedicated, and hard-working colleague Eleanor McNeese, whose proofreading during the early phases of my research was invaluable to me; for inviting me to participate in the Ph.D. reading group she was heading, which made me feel as if I belonged to a group of scholars; for inviting me to participate in her husband’s psychoanalytic group discussions. I also want to thank the distinguished scholars who participated on my dissertation committee for the wonderful questions they asked, for their mentoring, and in particular, to the chair of my committee, Valerio Ferme, whose suggestions made this work feasible. I am, finally, grateful to Michael Du Plessis for introducing me to the work of Gilles Deleuze and for his early mentoring. I am also particularly grateful to my immediate family for their support and for the many nights and days of neglect that they endured on behalf of my research. vi Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: The Model ..................................................................................................................... 7 The Mother, the Beloved, and Death .......................................................................................... 7 Freud, Difference and Repetition ................................................................................................ 9 Repetition, Difference, the Mind, and our Thought Processes ................................................. 14 The Model ................................................................................................................................. 24 Chapter 2: Beyond Good and Evil: Pisana and the Birth of the Italian Nation ............................ 40 Romanticism, Sentimentalism, and the Birth of a Nation ........................................................ 42 Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian Nation, and the Birth of Democracy ......................................... 43 Giuseppe Mazzini, Ippolito Nievo and Confession of an Italian .............................................. 47 The Plot ..................................................................................................................................... 52 The Model ................................................................................................................................. 56 The Three Women .................................................................................................................... 58 Epilogue .................................................................................................................................... 83 Chapter 3: Fosca (Fosca): A Study in Genre (Gender) ............................................................... 85 La Scapigliatura and the City of Milan ..................................................................................... 87 Tarchetti’s Literary Career ........................................................................................................ 90 Sentimentalism and the Novel .................................................................................................. 95 The Social Sentimental Novel and Realism............................................................................ 100 The Debate Between Realism and Sentimentalism ................................................................ 106 The Plot ................................................................................................................................... 109 The Model ............................................................................................................................... 110 The Three Women .................................................................................................................. 115 Chapter 4: Misrepresentations, Misconceptions, and the Absence of Truth .............................. 135 The Italian Economy at the End of the Century ..................................................................... 137 La Questione Femminile ......................................................................................................... 139 Italo Svevo and his Native City of Trieste .............................................................................. 150 The Plot ................................................................................................................................... 155 The Model ............................................................................................................................... 156 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 177 1 Introduction This research project began as an attempt to redeem a heroine that was traditionally collapsed by critics with the Femme Fatale. Although at first sight, this figure—which from now on I will refer to as the third woman—appears to share some of the qualities of the femme fatale, upon closer scrutiny she fulfills a different role.1 While in literature the femme fatale functions as a blood-sucking female figure, the seductive woman who ensnares her lovers, leading them into compromising and dangerous positions, the third woman, instead, reveals an ideal that functions as a model for the male protagonist. In the texts in which this third woman appears, she is placed vis-à-vis another archetypal female figure—the Angel of the House—a figure that in literature is often portrayed as the faithful mother and wife who unselfishly devotes herself to these duties. For authors whose views coincide with those promoted by the dominant culture, this figure embodies their ideal.2 On the contrary, in works in which the author’s views go against
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