University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/66542 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. The Phoenix Speaks: The Reclamation of Socio-Political Engagement in the Works of Leonardo Sciascia and Antonio Tabucchi, 1975-2005 by Elizabeth Wren-Owens A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Italian University of Warwick, Department of Italian November 2005 1 Contents Acknowledgements p.2 Declaration p.3 Abstract p.4 Abbreviations p.5 Part 1: Text and Society: Text in Society p.6 1.1. Introduction p. 7 1.2. Direct Comment on Contemporary Events p.38 Part 2: Engagement through Spatial Representations p. 73 2.1. Sciascia's and Tabucchi's Theatres of Engagement p. 74 2.2. Representations of Geographical and Historical Spaces in Sciascia's Texts p.76 2.3. Representations of Geographical and Border Spaces in Tabucchi's Texts p.112 Part 3: The Challenge of Communication p. 143 3.1. Committed Literature in an Unstable World p. 144 Part 4: The Challenges ofIntertextuality and Self-Reflexivity p. 182 4.1. Dialogue and Commitment p. 183 4.2. Dialogue and Intertextuality in Sciascia p. 187 4.3. Dialogue with the Past and the Self in Tabucchi p.219 Part 5: Conclusions p.250 5.1. The Value of Literature and Journalism p.251 5.2. Conclusion p.264 Appendix 1 p.269 Bibliography p.271 2 Ackaowledgments I would like to thank everyone who has helped me in planning, researching and completing this thesis. I am deeply grateful to Dr Jennifer Burns for her supportive and incisive supervision from the conception of the thesis to its conclusion. I would like to thank Dr Simon Gilson and Dr Loredana Polezzi for generously reading and responding to parts of the thesis, and to thank all members of the Italian department at the University of Warwick for providing such a supportive and stimulating research community in which to work. I would also like to thank Josie Williams, for her good humour and cheer. I am grateful to my family and friends for their understanding and support during this research; in particular to my parents, for giving me the belief that I could successfully undertake such a project, and to my husband, for his encouragement and patience. I would finally like to thank the AHRC, whose financial support made this research possible. This thesis is dedicated to the loving memory of my Grandfather, Christopher Arthur Wren, 1924-2006. 3 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work, and that its contents have not been submitted for a degree at another university. Revised sections of chapter 2.3., 'Representations of Geographical and Border Spaces in Tabucchi's Texts', have been published as 'Engagement through Geographical and Border Spaces in Tabucchi's Texts', in Arachnojiles, 3 (Spring 2004), and revised sections of chapter 2.2., 'Representations of Geographical and Historical Space in Sciascia's Texts', have been accepted for publication as 'Un cambiamento microscopico: Microstoria e spazio storico concettuale negli ultimi romanzi storici di Sciascia', in La forma del Passato, ed. by Laura Rorato (Bern: Peter Lang, forthcoming). 4 Abstract This thesis represents the first comparative study of Leonardo Sciascia and Antonio Tabucchi. It examines their literary engagement with socio-political concerns in a climate coloured by the scepticism and uncertainty of postmodernism and post-structuralism. This thesis seeks to counter current literary criticism, which suggests that engagement in Tabucchi's writing is confined to certain key texts, and to' instead show that committed writing underpins all of his work, including texts currently held to deal solely with literary concerns. Previous research asserts that Sciascia's work aims to engage with society, often employing the anachronistic term impegno to describe his writing. This thesis seeks to examine the ways in which Sciascia's engagement counters the political and literary challenges which led to the collapse of impegno by the 1970s. The thesis is structured in five parts. Part one charts the course of committed writing from the post-war era to its problematization during the 1950s and 1960s. It examines the relevance of Sciascia, Tabucchi, and the importance of 1975 as a starting point for this study. It goes on to explore direct engagement with specific events in their writing, and their employment of fictional lenses to factual writing. Part two examines ways in which the writers use the representation of geographical, historical and border spaces to engage with society. Part three considers ways in which Sciascia and Tabucchi view notions of uncertain truths and the inability of language to fully communicate ideas, as means of strengthening, rather than undermining, engagement. Part four investigates ways in which intertextuality, another barrier to engagement, is used by the two writers to dialogue with society as well as with literature. Part five studies the value with which Sciascia and Tabucchi imbue literature, as compared to journalism, and assesses the extent to which they view literature as a valid means of engagement. 5 Abbreviations The following abbreviations are used throughout this thesis: Leonardo Sciascia, Opere 1956-1971, ed. by Claude Ambroise (Milan: Bompiani, 2001), is abbreviated as I. Leonardo Sciascia, Opere 1971-1983, ed. by Claude Ambroise (Milan: Bompiani, 2001), is abbreviated as II. Leonardo Sciascia, Opere 1984-1989, ed. by Claude Ambroise (Milan: Bompiani, 2002), is abbreviated as III. 6 Part 1: Text and Society: Text in Society 7 1.1 Introduction This thesis represents the first comparative study of Leonardo Sciascia (1921- 1989) and Antonio Tabucchi (1943-). It focuses on the ways in which the two writers engage with society through their texts, and on the means through which they assert a belief in the value of literature as a tool for understanding and for acting in the contemporary world. The thesis builds on the valuable but limited studies on Tabucchi's writings to offer a radically different interpretation of engagement in Tabucchi's work. Previous research has suggested that Tabucchi's texts may be divided into different strands, which either address socio-political concerns or which concentrate solely on postmodernist debates such as ontology, multiplicity or division of the subject. In her recent monograph, L 'uomo inquieto: Identita e alterita nell'opera di Antonio Tabucchi, Pia Schwarz Lausten suggests that the divided subject and the search for the other underpins all of Tabucchi's writing.) Flavia Brizio-Skov's earlier monograph, Antonio Tabucchi: Navigazioni in un arcipelago na"ativo, suggests that rovescio represents the underlying theme of Tabucchi's writing, and she acknowledges the presence of engaged writing only in Tabucchi's 1994 text, Sostiene Pereira, and his 1997 text, La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro.2 Recent articles and chapters written on Tabucchi have also examined the committed writing of Sostiene Pereira and La testa, viewing these texts as separate from Tabucchi's other writings, which I Pia Scwarz Lausten, L 'uomo inquieto: ldentita e alterita nell 'opera di Antonio Tabucchi ~CO~hag~~: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2005). FlaVIa BnZlo-Skov, Antonio Tabucchi: Navigazioni in un arcipelago narrativo (Cosenza: Pellegrini, 2002). 8 examine more literary and ontological themes.3 This thesis counters such readings of Tabucchi's texts, to suggest that socio-political commitment underpins all of Tabucchi's works, and that the themes pinpointed by other critics as divorced from engagement in fact represent a different yet powerful form of committed writing. Critics have long recognised that a belief in literature as a means of engaging with society underscores Sciascia's writing, and much of the critical analysis of Sciascia's texts makes a passing reference to impegno. Texts such as Adamo Liborio's Leonardo Sciascia: Tra letteratura e impegno do not however unpack the term impegno, or question the extent to which it is an appropriate term to employ from the 1970s onwards.4 As yet no research has been published which examines the ways in which Sciascia's commitment faces and overcomes the obstacles posed to notions of impegno during the 1950s and 1960s. Incisive works have been published, which examine Sciascia's texts through the prism of a genre or a theme in his writing, and which comment on aspects of his engagement. Francesca Bemadinin's edited volume, Leonardo Sciascia: La mitografia e la ragione, Massimo Onofri's Nel nome dei padri: Nuovi stud; sciasciani and Ricciarda Ricorda's Pagine vissute: Studi di letteratura italiana 3 Bruno Ferraro, ·Letteratura e impegno in Sostiene Pereira di Antonio Tabucchi', Narrativa, 8 (1995 July), 157-72; Angela M. Jeannet, 'A Matter ofInjustice: Violence and Death in Antonio Tabucchi' , Annali d'Italianistica, 19 (200 1), 153-69; Jennifer Burns, Fragments o/Impegno: Interpretations o/Commitment in Contemporary Italian Na"ative 1980-2000 (Leeds: Northern Universities Press, 2001), pp. 61-80. In addition to her insightful reading of Sostiene Pereira and u: testa, Burns also suggests that Tabucchi's representation of the underclass may be usefully Vle,,:ed as an e:aension ofVittorini's concept of 'il mondo offeso'. My own, very different, readmg of the Importance of the underclass, and the underworld which they inhabit, is explored in chapter 2.3. of this thesis, 'Representations of Geographical and Border Spaces in Tabucchi's Texts'. 4 Adamo Liborio, Leonardo &iascia: Tra letteratura e impegno (Enoa: Papiro, 1992).