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 '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 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. MajaMikula 'I he announcement read as follows: UNel pomeriggio del 23 marzo 1944, elementi criminali hanno eseguito un attentato con lancio di bomba contra una colonna tedesca di Polizia in transite Introduction per Via Rasella. In seguito a questa imboscata, 32 upmini della Polizia tedesca sono stati uccisi e parecchi feriti ... Il Comando Tedesco, percio, ha ordinato Carla Capponi (known also by her wartime names of inglesina, the "little che per ogni Tedesco ammazzato dieci criminali comunisti-badogliani saranno English girl;' Elena, and Silvia) was born in Rome on 7 December 1918, as fucilati. Questordine e gia stato eseguito:'l the firstborn of Giuseppe Capponi, a mining engineer, and Maria Tamburri, However, the myth that the Germans first publicly pledged to forego the a schoolteacher and union activist. Carla and her sister Flora, sixteen months reprisal if the partisans responsible for the attack turned themselves in has been her junior, received their primary education at home from their parents, who present for decades in the popular imagination.2 In 1948, a group of relatives wanted to protect them from fascist indoctrination characteristically imparted of the Ardeatine victims initiated a legal suit against the perpetrators of the through the public education system. The two sisters developed a close bond, . Notwithstanding the court's decision, which exonerated the central during Carla's formative years. The third sibling, Piero, was much partisans from any responsibility for the reprisal and declared the Via Rasella younger (born in 1928) and thus could not take part in their youthful exploits. attack a legitimate act of war, public condemnation has persisted until the The economic hardship the family endured after the death of Carla's father in a present. For decades, Capponi was the target of threatening phone calls and mining accident in 1940 forced both sisters to forego further studies and enter abusive graffiti. Interviewed in the 1980s by the Canadian documentary film­ the workforce in their early twenties. Carla jOined the Communist Party in the maker Shelley Saywell, she described this persistent exposure to public abuse same year (Slaughter 46). as "personally very upsetting." She also felt that most of the attacks targeted her Soon after the fall of fascism and the ensuing German occupation of in particular (Saywell 100), perhaps taking advantage of her assumed greater Rome, Carla's home in the Foro di Traiano became a distribution centre for vulnerability as a woman. In 1954, the case was taken to the Roman Court of the Communist Party newspaper, EUnita, and the newspaper of the Catholic Appeal, but it was dismissed again, only to be resurrected in the 1990s, with yet left, Voce Operaia; safehaven for partisans and runaway Italian soldiers; and another judicial inquiry (1996-99) seeking to classify the Via Rasella attack as a a venue for meetings of various antifascist groups, including Patriotic Action crime. For a second time, the case was concluded in favour of the accused, and Groups (Gruppi di Azione Patriottica, or GAP) - the urban antifascist guerilla the attack was sanctioned by the court as a legitimate act of war. engaging in acts of sabotage and attacks on German strongholds - of which Carla later became an active member. She participated in numerous actions A bequest to posterity against the Germans, including bomb strikes and armed attacks against In her book Can cuore di donna (With the Heart of a Woman), Carla Capponi prominent individuals and the key establishments run by the occupying forces. constructs her identity through the moral dilemmas and choices she had She was also a vice-commander of a partisan unit on the outskirts of Rome, at to work through in a crucial moment in the history of contemporary , Palestrina and Monti Prenestini. namely during the two decades of the consolidation of fascist dictatorship In the postwar period, she was a Member of Parliament for the Communist (1922-43) and the resistance period (1943-44). Although her decision to Party on two occasions (1953 and 1972), a member of the Justice Commission in fight in antifascist resistance seems to challenge the conventional gender the early 1970s, and of the Presidential Committee of the National Association expectations of her time, she interprets it as the only natural response in the of Italian Partisans (ANPI) until her death in 2000. As a woman who was given historical circumstances. Moreover, the text displays a particular version actively involved in the armed resistance, one of only sixteen Italian women of patriotism, associated with antifascist resistance and the first post-World decorated with a gold medal for military bravery in World War II, Capponi War II constitution, based on ostensibly universal values, yet firmly rooted in is a legendary figure who bends the traditional perceptions of patriotism and the specific Italian historical and socio-cultural context. This study examines gendered agency. Capponi's construction of her gendered and national identity, interpreting it as 1"",1" 1I1,1 1', 'II IIIIII IIIII I, IIIII L IIII1I I1I ' (AIII U" I)!! (/1 (/Uilil I 7 ,. Ii' III ' 111111' ,I "11111 , 1111111 II Iii illlllll'l 1lIIIi" II Will 1111 1 'Milil III

a politi ally harged a l of rcsiSlan ' I Y SOIII ' O il wiII" I I I jill I "I I I III h hn s With the heart of a woman: a gendered perspective been under attack, and as a master narraliv wilh ,I tll\'l I\, \111 pol 'lllial r 'I h title of the text, as well as its discursive framework, reveal the author's the author. subj ectivity as highly gendered. The title itself captures the ambiguity of a Capponi's book is not easily classifiable in term 0 'nr '. Publi ~1 d ndered war experience by inviting different readings of the word "heart;' by II Saggiatore (Milan) as part of the Collana storica (History erIes), It IS with its overlapping semantic fi elds - as the locus of both love/compassion simultaneously an autobiography in which the author's life is interpreted as and spirit/audacity. With the "heart of a woman;' Capponi does not engage an intersection of verifiable historical circumstances, and a history in which in acts of violence lightly, seeing them first and foremost as forced upon the historian herself was one of the participants. In this history, the author's her by historical circumstances. Time after time, taking life presents moral own recollections serve as the key primary sources, at times reinforced by dilemmas, which can only be resolved by calling to mind the remedial intent other material, such as official documents, newspaper articles and oral history. of each action, to prevent further violence by the Germans. In particular, Reading Hobsbawm's A Short Century, Capponi becomes aware of the extent immediately before the Via Rasella bombing, Capponi has to find strength to to which the public affairs recorded in his book have made an impact on perform the attack by reminding herself of all the atrocities committed by the her own life, making her a valuable witness of the events which shaped her ermans, of the devastation of Rome caused by allied bombing, of the torture country's recent history (Capponi 11-12). She sets out to take her memories and executions of her comrades, of deportations, concentration camps and out of the private sphere, motivated by a desire to claim a place in history the numerous Italian soldiers who perished on the Russian, Greek or Yugoslav for the numerous fellow resistance fighters whose names would otherwise be fronts (Capponi 229). forgotten (12). By joining the armed struggle against the occupying forces, Capponi and It is evident that Capponi, like many women autobiographers before her, other female combatants in the Italian Resistance transgressed the popular goes to great lengths to explain the motives that prompted her to produce a xpectations that permitted women a limited range of stereotypically female text intended for public consumption, to "justify [her] entry into the realm of duties, such as care for the wounded; assistance with food, clothes and sanitary public (thus, male) discourse" (Morgan 8) . In the Preface, she offers a number of equipment; sabotage of enemy supplies; organisation of strikes, demonstrations interesting thoughts on the relationship between personal and social memory, and various cultural and educational activities; and engagement in the autobiography and history. The reader is told that Can cuore di donna was production and distribution of an underground press. Capponi's choice would commissioned by the publisher and that the author's immediate response was have been considered unusual, if not emphatically improper, by many of her one of "panic;' "torment" and "profound depression:' Memory, says Capponi, contemporaries. In fact, even her mother considered it downright madness. follows a logic all of its own: "[u]na memoria ha molte altre memorie, attaccate When, in the growing turmoil upon the announcement of the armistice on 8 al tronco di un albero come rami scomposti ma pure armoniosi" (7).3 Once eptember 1943, Capponi declared that she wanted to join a group of armed fixed in the narrative form, thought is reduced to a lifeless skeleton, "come se civilians inviting Romans to resist the impending German occupation, her perdesse interesse, divenisse noioso (7, as if it lost interest and became boring):' mother's immediate response was: "Ma sei matta! Ma che ci va a fa r una Writing is further perceived as a kind oflife mapping, which forces the author donna? Quell'invito e rivolto agli uomini" (96).6 Capponi herself explains her "a consider are gli spazi entro i quali si esvolta la [sua] vita, a misurarne il val ore decision as a natural, commonsensical response to the "orrore delle aberranti (to consider the spaces within which [her] life has unfolded and measure their teorie nazifasciste (horror of aberrant Nazi-fascist theories)" (13). worth)." (8) It also conjures up thoughts of death, as the author comes to terms However, the entire first chapter of her autobiography, entitled "The garden with her advanced age and the limited time left for new experiences (8).4 and the world" C"ll giardino e il mondo"), seems to be an endeavour by the Published in late 2000, and officially launched a week before the author's author to 'justify' her decision by constructing a well-matched identity through death at the age of eighty-two, Can cuore di donna may be read as Capponi's an account of her family background and early childhood. Indeed, when asked bequest to posterity, in which her memory of personal experience is offered by a co-fighter, Lucia Ottobrini (wartime name Maria), what motivated her to to validate the truthfulness of historical interpretation. The detailed account participate actively in the war, she realises that her choice was determined by of the events that unfolded immediately after the Via Rasell a attack, in which th e isolation f her family, which had a "culture" of its own, different and far the author implicitly addresses the accusations she wa s xpo. d t day after r moved fr m fa i t reality (142). day throughout the postwar period,S opens up th P