In this thesis I propose a queer reading of the works of three contemporary Italian women writers, Dacia Maraini (1936—), Goliarda Sapienza (1924-1996) and Elsa Morante (1912- 1985), published between the 1970s and 1980s. This timeframe coincides with the height of the Italian pensiero della differenza sessuale, emphasising the socially constructed nature of ‘woman’ and advocating a new symbolic order, with a focus on the redefinition of female identity. Yet, the texts that I examine for my study are not, or not just, feminist manifestoes. Despite sharing many feminist concerns, they also go beyond the dominant theoretical paradigms of the day and venture a step further into the exploration of alternative discourses that challenge taken-for-granted relations between biological sex, gender and sexual desire as fixed patterns for identity formation, thereby problematising the notion of ‘identity’ itself. As such, they appear in tune with more recent formulations arising from a new field of critical theory first elaborated in the North-American context in the early 1990s and now referred to as ‘queer theory’. Used as a framework for my analysis, queer theory will help us understand the critical attitude that Maraini, Sapienza and Morante upheld towards the cultural and philosophical positions of their time, while also suggesting new ways of (re)reading their works nowadays. My thesis will demonstrate that, despite not always sharing the same ideological agendas, these authors manifest a marked unease towards the binary logic implicit to the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, positing these as cultural performances and espousing a queer distrust towards identitarian anchorings.

The thesis sets out to examme the domestic realist fiction and non-fiction writings Gournalism, essays,conduct books) by three women writers of the late nineteenth century whose work depicts middle-class adolescent girls and young women whose lives revolve around the domestic sphere, home and family. The writers, Maria Antonietta Torriani, whose pen name was La Marchesa Colombi, Anna Radius Zuccari, who wrote with the pseudonym Neera, and Matilde Serao, were well known in their day, and often highly regarded by contemporary critics and writers. The aim of critical studies thus far has been primarily that of re-introducing forgotten female authors into the Italian literary 'canon': literary scholars have limited themselves either to examining these authors and their works individually, or to focusing on the writers' journalistic production. Through an analysis of a selection of their work, I argue that while Neera and Serao in particular positioned themselves as ideologically opposed to the ideals put forward by the emancipationists, . theirs and La Marchesa Colombi's fiction and non-fiction writings are shot through with contradictory evidence of their views of women's 'proper' role in the new Italy. Drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks (recent critical work on women writers, new historicism, theories of gender, sociology, critical studies of genre, and psychoanalysis), I argue that fiction in particular offered women writers a legitimate means of addressing and engaging with the burning social and political issues of the day regarding the role of women. The thesis is the first study to consider these writers and their works together, and to provide evidence of the writers' albeit possibly covert and unconscious engagement with debates on the role ofwomen in the new Italy.

This thesis investigates the different layers of commitment in the writings of Beppe Fenoglio and the Italian neorealists. This involves a reassessment of the neorealist literature of the 1940s and early 1950s, which I argue is far more varied, exploratory and experimental than is generally given credit for. I contend that Fenoglio's writing has a much closer relationship to neorealism than many critics believe. However, it is also the case to say that no partisan author is as critical of the Resistance as Beppe Fenoglio was. What then is the nature of his commitment? Through an examination of Fenoglio's Resistance writings, together with an appraisal of the historical and cultural context in which they were created, I show that Fenoglio's work is driven by a profound moral realism which continually searches for new ways to confront the traumatic nature of civil war and its aftermath. The focus of this examination is on the following works: Appunti partigiani; the Resistance short stories contained in I ventitre giorni della dtta di Alba; 11 partigiano Johnny (taken as a whole to include Primavera di bellezza and Ur partigiano Johnny); Una questione privata; and in conclusion one of Fenoglio's last short stories 'Ciao, Old Lion'. Drawing on existential models, I make the case that it is Fenoglio who uniquely out of the neorealist writers explores what it means to be individually 'authentic' in times of momentous historical happenings while contemporaneously subverting the possibility of 'authenticity', thus leading to a fiction which is 'true', and which is more genuinely 'authentic'. I show that there is no necessary contradiction between the 'existential' and 'historical' interpretations of Fenoglio's work, which have dominated the debate between critics for the last four decades. Indeed, I argue that the two critical approaches should be married in order to enrich our understanding of Fenoglio's complex vision of the Resistance and the significance of his achievement.

This is the very first historically informed investigation to offer an account of the origin of the elzeviro. The elzeviro was a very particular typology of newspaper article unique to the Italian press, printed in the two, two and a half or three columns on the left-hand of the cultural section of every daily political newspaper between 1903-4 and the end of the 1970s. Even though, by the end of its life span, the elzeviro had acquired a special meaning, that of a text with no narrative content, an almost gratuitous literary exercise, nevertheless for millions of Italian readers, for almost fifty years it represented the only contact with literary production. This thesis recovers the elzeviro to its journalistic dimension, retracing its origins in the transformation of the communicational space of the newspaper between 1870 and 1920. The original contribution of this research consists in the very first definition of the elzeviro as a newspaper article that originates as the answer to the modernisation of journalism occurred at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the primacy of news began to undermine the legitimacy of the subjective moment of the opinion. The foundation of the elzeviro lies in claiming a territory that was felt to be the province of opinion: literary journalists demanded that subjectivity not be discarded, and proved that the operation could be undertaken through an alternative instrument for the interpretation of reality: that of literature and culture. Literary journalists carved out their own personal space within the newspaper, where they were not forced to comment on news but could instead decide what constituted news and how to comment on it. The elzeviro is the account of the discovery of this news: for this reason, its discursive and colloquial dimension is the basis on which that type of article is organised, as the textual organism is bound by the aim of communicating news values.

Quando, dopo le prime ricerche preparatorie, fu sottoposto all'approvazione dell'Universita il titolo di questa Tesi, era mia mira di presentare un'ampia e dettagliata biografia del Rolli, ed uno studio critico della sua opera di divulgazione e quindi delle sue attivita letterarie, non originali, in Inghilterra. Tale mira non pote essere attuata nella sua interezza. Le lunghe ricerche compiute oltre che nelle pubbliche biblioteche, anche in numerosi archivi privati, hanno dato risultati pur troppo quasi negativi, mentre l'esame della traduzione del De Rerum Natura, per mano di Alessandro Marchetti, curata dal Rolli in Inghilterra, prendeva proporzi zioni sempre piu vaste. Pressata dalla scarsezza del tempo a mia disposizione, e considerato il valore di quest'ulti ma parte del mio lavoro come cosa non mai tentata,eppure indispensabile a formulare un giudizio equo sui meriti e demeriti del Rolli quale curatore di una prima edizione di un'opera di tanto rilievo, mi fu forza decidere di svolgere questo secondo tema, limitando la biografia a semplici note su notizie mancanti o dubbie, non appurate da altri, circoscrivendo ai testi piu salienti l'esame delle pubblicazioni curate dal Rolli. Le ragioni poi che dettarono di escludere da questo Saggio qualsiasi accenno o studio della traduzione rolliana del Paradiso Perduto appariranno ovvie qualora si consideri che questa pur nobile e ardita fatica del Rolli, fu gia ripetutamente sottoposta a esame critico di vaglia, e che io ho riconosciuto di non poter esamenmi dal concorrere, anche se con alcune riserve, nel giudizio su di essa gia universalmen te accettato. Cosi e che questo lavoro ha assunto piuttosto forma di contri buto parziale al mio soggetto, che di studio esauriente di esso. Nel sottoporre questo Saggio al giudizio degli esaminatori, non posso esimermi dal riconoscere il debito di gratitudine che ho verso il Duca di Richmond, the Earl of Stair, the Hon. Sir Hew Dalrymple, il signor John Purves, the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Sackville, Elena, Lountess of Radnor, il Duca di Sutherland, il Senatore Croce, il prof, Burgarda direttore della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, il Dott. Ros si della Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, che tutti con tanta cortesia incoraggiarono le mie ricerche facilitandole, come pure verso la Signorina Dobelli che mi fu sempre cosi larga di consigli e di guida.

Italo Calvino is a writer who metamorphoses, but also a highly recognizable writer, whose signature is almost a trademark, whose style is unmistakably his own. This thesis traces some of the reasons for this recognizability of the authorial image of Calvino, an image that has been produced and sculpted over time through different means and media, co-created by critics, readers and Calvino himself. Calvino’s presence in media and paratext, publishing houses and intellectual circles, journals and newspapers forms an intrinsic part of the studied material. This material is explicitly put into dialogue with critical volumes and the way academics arrive at, formulate and circulate knowledge: this enquiry into the form(ul)ation of critical discourses is a crucial part of what is explored in this dissertation. Because Calvino’s circulation is transnational, a comparison is made between the American, British and Italian reception of his works, focusing both on differences and similarities. The question as to what happens to an authorial image in translation and circulation forms a spine throughout the thesis and a conscious effort is made not to separate critics and readers, editorial and academic contexts, high and low literature, Italian and non- Italian readings. A discussion along canonical fault lines is therefore a central part of the dissertation: what has propelled Calvino to the status of ‘modern classic’? Resistance to Calvino’s canonization is discussed in order to get a better sense of the canonical negotiations that surround Calvino. The ‘essential Calvino’ that has been distilled in criticism is put alongside a range of possible, parallel ‘minor Calvini’, that have been less visible because of cultural, material or historical reasons. Ample room will be reserved for a ‘science fiction’ Calvino, who is much more visible in the Anglo-Saxon readings. Other alternative Calvini which are investigated include a feminist Calvino, a posthuman Calvino and an ecologist Calvino.

The thesis explores the diversity and experimentalism that typifies the narrative writings of the Scapigliatura. It offers a reading of key-texts by Rovani, Tarchetti and Dossi which focusses on the narrative techniques and structures which are used in the construction of meaning. Although critical attention addresses itself to the text and the narrative elements distinctive to it, it considers too the influence that context and circumstance exercise over the production of the work. The introduction looks at the particular problems that Italian Unification of 1861 with its accompanying political and cultural changes brought to the writer. This is followed by the body of the thesis which is made up of readings of specific texts. Chapters 2 and 3 study Tarchetti's and Rovani's very different attempts to produce committed, didactic writing with the instruments of popular fiction and the devices of the feuilleton. The 4th chapter discusses Dossi's semi-autobiographical fiction, L'altrieri and Vita di Alberto Pisani, in which although here too the narrator interpellates the reader through the medium of the text, empirical questions relating to the reading-public and the political climate no longer present themselves. The fragmentation of text and self that is witnessed in Dossi's writing returns as a theme in the discussion of Tarchetti's racconti fantastici in the last of the genre-related chapters. Here the function of the fantastic is examined together with the narratological elements of the genre. The last two chapters take up one aspect of this: the assault the fantastic makes on our sense of the integrity of character. The textual construction of character is discussed in relationship to Tarchetti's novel Fosca, where it is inscribed as an unstable, ambivalent category dependent on who is employing the linguistic register at any given time, and Dossi's misogynistic treatise La desinenza in 'A' which has to find the devices to construct and sustain a reductionist image of all women as Woman fixed in a few immutable traits.

This thesis investigates Rome as a site of modernity and an incubator of aesthetic modernism. More specifically, it analyses Rome’s visual and discursive imagery during the three decades that stretch from the end of the Second World War to the 1970s. It does so through a comparative analysis of literary, cinematic and critical texts. These include novels such as Levi’s L’orologio (1950) and Pasolini’s Petrolio (1992); films such as Rossellini’s Roma, città aperta (1945) and Fellini’s La dolce vita (1959); critical texts stemming from Roman intellectual circles in journals such as Rinascita, La strada, Presente, and Nuovi argomenti; and historical analyses of Rome’s urban development such as those of Benevolo, Insolera, Cederna, and Vidotto. The aim of this study is twofold. On the one hand it challenges traditional readings of Rome as an anti-modern or pre-modern urban entity (i.e. the myth of the ‘Eternal City’), which was generated during the Grand Tour and has continued to inform academic scholarship on Rome. On the other, it shows that Rome lies at the centre of extremely significant constellations of modern images and discourses which can be compared to most studied examples of urban modernity such as Paris, London, Berlin or New York. From a methodological perspective, this thesis delves into Foucault’s notion of ‘Archaeology’. Instead of analysing texts in a strictly philological way, attempting to detect their affiliation or their belonging to specific traditions, this thesis investigates its sources as symptoms of history’s movements. Instead of framing Rome through traditional categories such as ‘Eternal City’ or ‘Modern Hell’, this archaeological analysis suggests the coexistence of three discursive formations of Rome’s modern image, which are based on the concepts of fleetingness, dilation and entropy. These three terms inform the three sections of the thesis. Furthermore, it argues that Rome represents a case of ‘anachronistic’ modernity that might allows us to depart from canonical interpretations of Italian modernity as ‘backward’.

This thesis focuses on the revisiting of several scientific theories on the part of Italian authors from 1865-1901, and illustrates how the process of assimilation was the effect of an accommodative process, which resulted in authors reinterpreting these theories in terms of a contrast between a visible and an invisible domain. The first chapter focuses on Arrigo Boito’s ‘Lezione d’anatomia’ and Camillo Boito’s ‘Un corpo’ in order to show how the visible/invisible contrast becomes a hermeneutical grid by which the female body is defined, this body being the field on which medical normativity and the artistic approach meet and come into conflict with each other. The second chapter analyses how the visible-invisible contrast subtends Italian Spiritismo, a discipline that was read in scientific terms and (as in Luigi Capuana’s writings) as a theory concerning artistic – and literary – creation as well. Since the Spiritismo entails a process of ‘feminisation’ of the medium, which characterises both the ‘scientific’ and the ‘artistic’ facet of the discipline, the third chapter investigates the ways in which the female character has been represented as both a physical appearance and an elusive interiority (especially when dealing with the activity of reading) in Italian narrative from Tarchetti’s Fosca to the early twentieth century. As a conclusion, the fourth chapter retraces the formation of the visible-invisible dichotomy as resulting from the assimilation of European science through the analysis of the figure of the physician in Paolo Mantegazza’s Un giorno a Madera, Angelo Camillo De Meis’s Dopo la laurea and Luigi Capuana’s re-writing of his novel Giacinta. Moving from here, this thesis argues that the visible-invisible dichotomy is peculiar to the time span considered, as the twentieth-century will be distinguished by a general distrust towards – and trivialisation of – positivist science.

Cette thèse propose une étude sur un des écrivains italiens contemporains les plus connus (en Italie et à l’étranger), Antonio Tabucchi (1943-2012). Dans cette thèse nous tenterons de comprendre deux topoi au sein de l’œuvre tabucchienne : le rapport auteur-personnage-lecteur et l’engagement de l’écrivain, qui sont étudiés à la lumière de son travail journalistique et littéraire. Dans la deuxième partie on analyse l’œuvre tabucchienne à la lumière de l’influence de Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) et Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). Une autre remarque importante est que l’imagination et l’engagement de l’écrivain, forment un binôme dans l’œuvre tabucchienne. Un autre sujet exploré est comment l’engagement de l’écrivain se présente dans les articles que Tabucchi a écrit pour plusieurs journaux en Italie et en Europe. À travers cette recherche on a essayé de remplir le vide laissé dans un panorama italo-français dans lequel, malgré les nombreuses études sur l’œuvre tabucchienne, souvent différents aspects analysés dans cette recherche avaient été mis de côté. Et si la critique a davantage cherché à scinder les deux moments de littérature fantastique et engagée, dans ce travail on a essayé de ne pas les séparer, afin de fournir un portrait le plus possible exhaustif de l’écrivain toscan / This Thesis is about one of the country's best-known (in Italy and elsewhere) contemporary author Antonio Tabucchi (1943-2012). It makes an attempt to understand two literary topos of Tabucchi’s work: the writer-reader-character bond and the writer commitment, studied using his journalistic and literary work. The second part of this Thesis compares Tabucchi’s work with two writers, Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) and Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935), who have inspired Tabucchi in his work. An important observation is that the author imagination and author commitment form a harmonic duo in Tabucchi’s writing. Another area investigated is how the author commitment can be seen in Tabucchi’s articles published in several newspapers in Italy and Europe.My interest for this research is based on my observation that, despite the numerous researches done about Tabucchi, these themes have been treated only superficially. The critics often divide Tabucchi’s literary work in two (the fantastic literature and author commitment). This Thesis doesn’t make a separation between these two, and thus it aims to provide an exhaustive portrait of the Tuscan writer