This book examines the processes involv ' 111\ W I I II I the lives of women, both as autobiograp h i ' S \ 11 I \1 biographies. Some essays are theoretical dis ' lI SN (I II \il lIllI l the constructions of self-articulation in w t1 Jl's I I writing. Others are more autobiographica l, 111 1 h \ I " I th importance of self-articulation for cr alin ' p ibilities for self-direction. Ad pting different theoretical approaches, chal l 'I'll I Jl III II ction highlight the connections betwe n su bj ' I v I y on I hi tory, feminist concerns about moth rin an I lil moth r-daughter relationships, autobiography, di ours' n nd its framing of the relationship between text a nd Ii I'., nnd l'h ethics of constructing biographies. 'I'h ' b Ie i divided into three parts: the first parl ~ us 's )I) Ih pr c ss of writing lives as expressed but also ont st d in epistolary narratives, autobiography an I h INlori al fi tion. The econd part considers notions 0 1 ~' llI l iI J n al gy and the relationship with the mal rn al, loth t iol gi al and symbolic. The third part ompri s \1111 I 's whi h deal with writing outside geograp hi c I on I 111 ' 1'1 IH ri al borders. n Women Writing Lives I II, ,I It , .. 111111 '" II 110 Illd nita Wilson Across Genres, Generations and Borders Italian Women Writing Lives Edited by Susanna Scarparo and Rita Wilson Nt' W III : I JIII Vt' 1 I til I It'I IW III JI lt ' Monash Romance Studies Acknowledgements General Editor: Brian Nelson The Editors would like to thank all the readers who kindly gave their advice on the contributions published in this volume. We are particularly grateful Advisory Board: to Klaus Neumann for his invaluable help in the preparation of the final manuscript, to Richard Wilson for his industry and skill in formatting the text, Philip And.erson, J~net Beizer, Ross Chambers, Peter Cryle, and to Susi Walker, Paula Green, Bernadette Luciano and Denise Formica for FranC;:Olse GaIllard, DJelal Kadir, Stewart King, Rosemary Lloyd, their assistance and perceptive translations. Thanks are also due to the series Alfredo Martmez, Malcolm Read, Keith Reader, Susanna Scarparo, editor, Brian Nelson, for his encouragement and support. Tim Unwin, John West-Sooby Paola Bono's essay, "Women's Biographies and Autobiographies: A Political Monash Romance Studies is a series of refereed scholarly publications devoted Project in the Making", first appeared in Resources for Feminist Research, to the study o! ~~y a~pect of ~rench, .Italian and Spanish literature, language, 25(3-4), 1997, Special Issue: "Passionate Ethics: Kathleen Martindale, 1947- cult~re and clVllIzatl.on. It WIll publIsh books and collections of essays on 1995", pp. 38-45, and is re-printed here by kind permission of the publishers, specific themes, and IS open to scholars associated with academic institutions OISE/UT (University of Toronto, Canada). other than Monash University. Pro~osals for the series should be addressed to the general editor, from whom detatls of volumes previously published in the series are available: Unless otherwise indicated, translations from the Italian are by the authors of Professor Brian Nelson th e individual essays. School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics Building 11 'rhe Editors gratefully acknowledge the financial contribution of the Istituto Monash University Melbourne Vic. 3800 IL aliano di Cultura (Melbourne) towards the publication costs of the volume Australia and we thank the Director, Dott.ssa Simonetta Magnani, for her enthusiasm in osl ring collaboration between the Institute and the academy. Fax: (+61 3) 9905 5437 Email: [email protected] © Monash Romance Studies 2004 Financial assistance from the Instituto Italiano di Cultura (Melbourne) First American edition published 2004 Associated University Presses 2010 Eastpark Blvd MELBOURNE Cranbury, NJ 08512 lTALlAN GOVERNMENT CULTURAL OFF ICE ISBN 0-S7413-91S-X Cataloging-in -Publi ation ata i avail nhl ' r In II ' 1.I11'{l 1' 01 :Illl l' r 'ss ;ov 'r illll,'II\lOII ', I),'1 (I I)( ) ,"I c'li I CI CI I C I II ' I " I I I t I I ) l oin 1\ III ,I ( 'ollc', t 10 11 Contents Re-Thinking the Politics and Practice of Life Writing 1 Susanna Scarparo and Rita Wilson From Private to Public Women's Biographies and Autobiographies: A Political Project in the Making 10 Paola Bono Across Genres Women Writing Letters: Epistolary Practices in Nineteenth-Century Newspapers, Manuals and Fiction 24 Gabriella Romani Cosima, quasi Grazia: A Novel, Almost an Autobiography 38 Patrizia Guida Revisiting and Resisting Fascism: Gender Revisionism in Elsa Morante's La Storia 56 Dana Renga G 'nder and Patriotism in Carla Capponi's Con cuore di donna 70 M aja Mikula "n 'ller Losers Than Lost:" Self, Other and Irony in Clara Sereni's Autobiographical Macrotext 86 Mirrta Cicioni ero s Generations I) II" S" ing with Mothers in the Twenty-First Century: Three Generations of Itlliian Women Writers 102 ill'maricl Ie Lu iano W. I " M11.,1111 ' III 11,·r Mull",!': JI.h,' 1.1 1 I~ 1111"'1(1 .. 0' AUhel/llpi 11 7 I 'tlil itl ,' /I't' /I Across Borders Writing Outside the Borders: Personal Experience and History in the Works of Helga Schneider and Helena Janeczek 140 Re-Thinking the Politics and Practice of Maria Cristina Mauceri Life Writing Weaving Textual Tapestries: Weaving the 'Italian Woman-Writer' into the Social Fabric 152 Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli Susanna Scarparo and Rita Wilson ACROSS: prep. from one side to the other side of; intersecting; passing over at Imagining Homeland in Anna Maria Dell'Oso's Autofictions 169 any angle; opposite; in contact with; adv. crosswise; transversely from one side Susanna Scarparo and Rita Wilson to the other. (Websters New Twentieth Century Dictionary) As the title, Across Genres, Generations and Borders: Italian Women Writing My Other, My Self 183 Lives, suggests, the essays in this volume question, investigate and problematise Su zanne Branciforte the terms 'life: 'writing: and 'woman: We have deliberately chosen a title that is open to multiple interpretations to highlight the book's two interrelated aims: namely, to examine the processes involved in writing the lives of women, both Across the Nation as autobiographies and as biographies, and to link the process of narration (narrazione) to the act of writing lives and the search for the subject-woman. Lost in Transition 192 The accounts of identities which emerge from this collection of essays are set Ida Dominijanni off by an understanding of life writing as a political practice. All of the essays in this collection give voice to practices and traditions which are usually lost in 11l 0nolithical representations of dominant (especially male) culture, and show Contributors 210 ways in which such representations can be challenged. Some essays are more Works Cited 212 autobiographical, emphasising the importance of self-articulation for creating I ossibilities for self-direction. Others are theoretical discussions about the constructions of self-articulation in women's life writing. '1h e two chapters by Paola Bono and Ida Dominijanni, frame the theoretical li I' J uments of the collection. Bono's essay refers specifically to women's auto/ hi graphy as a political project in the making, while Dominijanni's contribution is an example of the practice of this politics. All of the essays develop and d ,fend the insight that there can be no fixed identity, that there is no ultimate I nowledge, and that representation is no longer a matter of veracity or accuracy but merely of competing discourses. Notions of authenticity and truth are, by I II accounts, outdated. Yet, within certain discourses there emerges the desire ('or affi rmation of self or origin. In particular, in women's life writing the need 10 reconsider, reclaim and reconcile hybrid forms of self-definition is not just I moral, but also an epistemological requirement - a necessary condition for IlIld r tanding one's 'place in the world: As P ola B no and raziell a Parati have argued, there are risks in but also flood I' 'asons ~ r avoidin 1 ar dfiniti ns of bi o raphy and autobi o raphy. I'lI'ati writ ·s th nt "a ut ol ioPrill hy nS :1 g'nre allows ror n "oJ) stnnt I' . j (inltion or il ll I OIiIHIII l" s ,lIld lilllll.ll loll, ." As til II, il s" I II ylwl d ,IIHllIl.III, Ihle Ht' Il "" I" II Pllll.tI ,,, III til" ' I , '," 111( ' .ltld h " Olll!' .1 I 1" 111t p .II,' WII I'I(' I Wil li I III 1 1111 1' 1" ' , 11111 ' 11 1 w ill 11 1111111111111 1111 1 11 1 I 11' llId, ' I' Itld, 1III1I Iltlll', •• I IllI tlll I Gender and Patriotislll ill CJa 'lhg('11 Il' I' w I II (II II I or g.111 j .1 1·.. 111.1 \' ', 111 0 1. 01I II . '0 111 rov '1'IliH I Via Itas ' 11 a .1 -, ( til \ 'k on t1 divi sion or SS 111r\H ,11 Y I ol i . , in Nozi-o lpi ed Rome in March Con cuore di donna 1( 1/1/ , app ni has bee n h ·Id r 'sponsibJe by some for the subsequent German I' pri sal, in which 335 persons were brutally killed in the Ardeatine caves near It me. The prompt reprisal was announced by the Germans post facto, three day after the attack, on the front page of the Roman daily II Giornale d'Jtalia.