Anti-Semitism, Misogyny and the Logic of Cultural Difference: Cesare Lombroso and Matilde Serao by Nancy A. Harrowitz

Differentia: Review of Italian Thought

Number 8 Combined Issue 8-9 Spring/Autumn Article 49

1999

Carole C. Gallucci

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Recommended Citation Gallucci, Carole C. (1999) "Anti-Semitism, Misogyny and the Logic of Cultural Difference: Cesare Lombroso and Matilde Serao by Nancy A. Harrowitz," Differentia: Review of Italian Thought: Vol. 8 , Article 49. Available at: https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/differentia/vol8/iss1/49

This document is brought to you for free and open access by Academic Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Differentia: Review of Italian Thought by an authorized editor of Academic Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. 388 DIFFERENT/A worthy of worship-operates as a by her own evidence. For example, leitmotif binding these individual Bradamante, the "unimpeachable narratives. Taken collectively, the female subject" whose military phase chapters trace the trajectory of the ... constitutes only a temporary activi Orlando Furioso itself, which moves ty before her public espousal of the from "romance and deviation" joys of domesticity" seems incompati (Angelica) to "epic and closure" ble with the Bradamante who under (Bradamante) (19). stands that Rodomonte's mausoleum Although as warrior woman, for Isabella "should not replace a Bradamante might seem the most woman, dead or alive, but should disruptive of Ariosto's collection of represent a woman's right to choose a female figures, Finucci identifies life of her own" (194). Such a contra Angelica as his most formidable diction suggests a destablizing crux female. Narcissistically self-enclosed which might work to contravene or and self-contained, uninterested in at least compromise a recuperative suitors and equipped to thwart narrative strategy. But if Finucci would-be ravishers such as Ruggiero, chooses not to foreground such crux by becoming invisible, Angelica es in her analysis, it is because her "desires nothing but escape from the main objective--an ambitious one--is desire that creates a place for her in to dismantle an entrenched critical representation" (118). But an tradition which mistakenly attributes Angelica who is "the subject of her protofeminist attitudes to Castiglione own desire" (120) is outside the econ and Ariosto. In terms of this task, she omy of the symbolic order. As such, is unquestionably successful. Thus she unmans--or castrates--men who her book represents a keystone study control or possess her (as seen in which will prompt an important shift Orlando's madness), and therefore in critical approaches to major writ must be radically degraded in the ers of the Italian Renaissance. narrative. Bradamante, on the other Especially as a first book, it is a hand, although ostensibly threaten remarkable accomplishment. ing by virtue of her fiercely male exterior, is never phallically empow SUSAN ZIMMERMAN ered: Ariosto's narrative strategy Queens College, CUNY with her is to show "at each opportu nity that she is only pretending to be a man" (243). Finucci's examination of both the Cortigianoand Orlandofurioso is extra Anti-Semitism, Misogyny ordinarily rewarding because of the and the Logic of polished way in which she integrates Cultural Difference: theoretical premises with richly Cesare Lombroso and detailed textual exegesis. It is true Matilde Serao that occasionally her insistence on By Nancy A. Harrowitz. narrative strategies of recuperation Lincoln & London: University of flattens out contradictions suggested Nebraska Press, 1994. reviews 389

where, Harrowitz utilizes it to draw This study is primarily concerned attention to the fact that the underly with the connection between misogy ing stereotype is often that of the East ny and anti-Semitism in late nine European Jew. Unfortunately, the teenth-century Italy, and specifically reader is left thirsting for more infor the place and identity of women and mation . Jews in society. Harrowitz's intention, Chapter four, "Portraits of Self as implied in her title, is not only to Abnegation", is one of the most inter provide a close reading of the authors esting . In this chapter, Harrowitz in question, but to determine to what addresses the concept of self-hatred degree these prejudices are reinforced by comparing Lombroso's Jewish or even generated by nineteenth-cen identity with Otto Weininger and tury science, particularly Darwinism. Franz Boas. Here she examines some She singles out Lombroso and Serao of the limited bibliography on Jewish because both depend on the science self-hatred, including the questions of their day to theorize the status of of definition. Harrowitz is not alone disenfranchised groups, and both in arguing that other factors, such as reveal problematic relationships to complicity with antisemitic policies their selfhood (13). Harrowitz has and acts of anti-Semitism, must be made an impressive effort to draw taken into account before one can parallels between science and litera conclude that Lombroso hated him ture and to show how prejudice self for being a Jew, and prefers the towards different groups can inter terms "self-denial" or "self-abnega sect. Harrowitz has delineated where tion". Equally insightful is her analy points of comparison might be sis of the warm reception of drawn, and she has found some com Weininger in Italy, especially by mon ground for her choices, if not Florentine intellectuals who were convincing theoretical justification. markedly silent on his anti-Semitism. She organizes her study into seven In the following two chapters she chapters, three of which are centered explores the work of Matilde Serao. around discussions of misogyny and While the first presents an overview anti-Semitism in Lombroso. While of Serao's work, studying her news she relays nothing new on the subject paper editorials together with her of Lombroso' s misogyny, amply doc novels, the second examines the umented in scores of studies, the dis novel La mano tagliata. Both chapters course on anti-Semitism provides an focus on the ambiguous and often important step in opening up new contradictory aspects that character fields of inquiry. It is this alleged ize Serao's writing. Like Lombroso, newness of the field that sets much of Harrowitz contends, Serao challenges the tone for her analysis. The last sec the status of her own group while tion of chapter three is focused on distancing herself from her own iden Bram Stoker's Dracula, as Count tity. Although Serao built a brilliant Dracula is compared to a Lombrosian career for herself, in her newspaper criminal. Although this is a subject editorials she advised women to stay that has already been treated else- at home. In her novels she demon- 390 DIFFERENT/A strated ambivalence and hostility when she applies Barbara Johnson's towards women's subaltern status. "power of feminine contradiction" to Harrowitz does well to point out that Serao as a solution to the problem of a glaring exception to her conser female authority in the text: vatism is her anti-Fascist stance "Contradiction is at once a vehicle for which clearly cost her the Nobel this authority and at the same time Prize in literature. Harrowitz spends an analysis of the source of its power; a considerable amount of time, and to this dual characteristic sums up very good effect, studying her three 'love' well the situation in which we find novels, Cuore infermo, Addia amore! Serao" (100). While it is true that and Castigo. rereading Serao in terms of inconsis In the second chapter on Serao, tency or tension rather than strict cat Harrowitz studies how Serao' s view egorization can be useful, it is less of women as marginalized interacts clear how bound up these terms are with the more fully marginalized and or where they may lead: why, for scapegoated figure of the Jew in some example, are these categories not of her fiction. After an astute analysis applied to writing by men (can "male of La mano tagliata in terms of race, contradiction" exist?) religion and gender, Harrowitz con This study of Serao might have cludes that, for Serao, a critique of been improved if the author had paid patriarchy is possible only through closer attention to the critical recep the figure of the Jew. tion of Serao during her time, rather One of Harrowitz's intentions is than exclusively providing close the rehabilitation of Serao as a wor readings. In addition, Harrowitz, sur thy subject of critical analysis. She prisingly, fails to draw upon recent attributes Serao's marginalization to critical studies to strengthen her her "pluralistic literary production" claims. Regarding women's margin and "critical prejudice" (82). In doing alization, her study would have ben so, Harrowitz lends her voice to the efitted greatly by rereading Serao in current debate as to whether or not relation to other Italian women writ Serao can be considered a feminist. ers of the time, like Negri and Harrowitz opts for exploring the Deledda, who also addressed the "feminist tensions" in Serao, yet marginalization and contradiction in Harrowitz herself can be accused of their lives as literary women, as pushing Serao along the spectrum Robin Pickering-Iazzi notes in from ambivalent misogynist to quasi Unspeakable Women: Selected Short feminist too fast. Her analysis, how Stories Written by Italian Women dur ever, raises an important question: ing Fascism. What are the criteria for judging texts There is a final chapter devoted to "feminist"? It is clear that salvaging a "Gender & the Stigma of Difference," multi-faceted Serao is nevertheless a a study of the history of the word way of rescuing women's voices. "stigmata" in order to illuminate the Yet Harrowitz, though she is cer logic of cultural difference in the late tainly not alone, falls into the very nineteenth-century. By doing so, essentialism she is trying to avoid Harrowitz attempts to tie up the reviews 391 issues of Judaism and gender raised least, a discrete occasion for reflecting in the works of Lombroso and Serao, on some aspect of alienated human though is never completely success existence. Italian literary culture once ful. enjoyed relative autonomy; it existed The discourses raised by both in a space roped off from society and Lombroso and Serao which address designated as a refuge from commer crucial concerns of the late nine cialization and ideological violence. teenth-century, such as the place and Then one could read the history of identity of women and Jews in soci modem Italy in novels that not only ety and the role of science to mediate spoke to the development of civic pressing social issues, have a contem consciousness but also programmed porary relevance. Moreover, the mind of the reader to a totalizing Harrowitz's work is an important logic. Each fiction answered in some addition to the increasing number of way all the questions that could be studies which trace a current of anti asked about life. Writing was indeed Semitism in Italian culture. By under a serious matter, the only truly 'seri lining the relationship between ous" and "authentic" activity in a beliefs about people and practices world devoted to material progress. marked as different, as well as the The task of writing novels was noth logic of the erasure of difference, ing less than to represent society to Harrowitz's study rings with a con itself. temporary relevance as we confront It is hard to pinpoint when the recent recycled racist and misogynist novel in Italy ceased being a vehicle discourses culminating in The Bell of ideological commitment. Nor is it Curve. certain that all current writing is in fact post-ideological. Vassalli, CAROLE C. GALLUCCI Consolo and Pazzi are names that Florence, Italy immediately come to mind as proof that commitment (whether on the left or the right) is not a thing of the past. But what these authors lack with respect to such writers as Vittorini, The New Italian Novel Pasolini or Volponi is a sense of the Edited by Zygmunt G. Baranski and contradiction between culture and Lino Pertile. the secular market system. They Edinburgh: Edinburgh University share no common purpose in this Press, 1994. regard, no rational project designed to counter the absence and privation What best characterizes the possi they experience in life. In their world, bilities of fiction today in Italy is the "culture" has passed completely over coming into being of a narrative com to the other side to become a part of munity distinct from the groups of society's business. literary intellectuals for whom in the Another way of looking at this post-war period the novel was essen change in context is to view the cul tially a vehicle for social reform or, at tural field as having undergone such