Texte remanié de: Tesi di laurea--Siena, 1923. / La p. de titre porte en plus : "Università degli studi di Siena" Bibliogr. p. 105-107.

Amelia Rosselli has often been considered an obscure and impenetrable author, whose language may be identified with the expression of the unconscious. In this study I argue, on the contrary, that a strong cognitive tension underlies the poet's multilingual production (in Italian, English, and French). I therefore explore its imaginative and philosophical depth, by reconstructing Rosselli's project to transpose into writing the complexity of human experience in a fickle, chaotic, and contradictory world. In the first chapter I focus on language, in particular on lexical fusions and distortions, mainly questioning Pasolini's interpretation based on of the notion of freudian slip. With the aid of hermeneutical tools borrowed from the philosophy of language, I claim that Rosselli's language aims on the one hand at mirroring reality, and on the other at making textual experience potentially infinite, thus engaging the reader in a never-ending interpretation. I also maintain that the category of the baroque allows us to appreciate Rosselli's aesthetics from an original point of view. In the second chapter I investigate Rosselli's elaboration of a new metrical form, stressing its relations to the poet's studies in musicology, ethnomusicology and acoustics. Through the meter Rosselli tries to restrain subjectivity, hence accessing a more objective and universal poetic dimension. The last chapter is devoted to Rosselli's mysticism. The mystic tradition offers a vivid imagery and a refined rhetoric to an author who wants to put the subject aside and depict the unstable (or vain?) nature of the world. However, Rosselli's attempt to find a metaphysical or divine remedy to violence and chaos does not succeed. Her longing for transcendency remains unfulfilled.

My dissertation focuses on various intellectual currents that shaped poet, composer, and amateur ethnomusicologist Amelia Rosselli’s work from 1950 to 1964, before she gained mild fame as a poet on the Italian literary scene. Rosselli had a trilingual background in Italian, English, and French, due to her Italian father and English mother and her family’s forced absence from Italy from Rosselli’s birth in 1930 until 1946, as a result of her father’s political activities. Rosselli is sometimes considered an outsider to Italian poetic movements, but in this dissertation I trace how she fits into various transnational intellectual networks. In doing so, I examine Rosselli through different lenses than what is typical in analyses of her work: I center her understandings of cultural difference according to her studies in various strains of anthropology and ethnomusicology. In doing so, Rosselli’s association of cultural difference with new conceptions of technology comes to the fore: namely, audiovisual recording technology used in ethnographic and ethnomusicological research; tools of electronic music that were bound up with this research in the 1950s; and new points of view on the body’s use as a technology, through a diffusion of the concept of techniques of the body. What emerges from my investigation is Rosselli’s political investments in establishing the universality of humans’ physiological and psychological capacities, beyond race (Chapter 1); valorizing previously marginalized cultural techniques, particularly techniques of the body (Chapter 2); seeking new mediatic modes of expression beyond the West (Chapter 3); and remapping relationships between self and other in her poetic output (Chapter 4). Although these political goals did not always result in building networks of solidarity, I argue that taking them seriously as important elements in Rosselli’s thought allows for a fuller consideration of how ideas of power dynamics, universality, and relationality play out in relation to cultural difference in her work. In doing so, I reveal how Rosselli inscribed herself into various political and intellectual networks that shaped Italian cultural life in the 1950s and 1960s.

This thesis focuses on Intertexuality in the Poetry of Amelia Rosselli from Primi Scritti (1952-1963) to Variazioni belliche (1959-1961). The research is based on the annotated books of the author's personal library kept in the Fondo Rosselli of Viterbo and of her personal documents, letters and original typescripts of her works held in the Centro Manoscritti Autori Moderni e Contemporanei of the University of Pavia. Rosselli's annotations are studied for the first time and they have proved to be essential for the interpretation of her poetry. Rosselli's aspiration to Gesamtskunstwerk is reflected in the composition of her library which ranges from musicology, quantum physics, Gestalt psychology, history of art and philosophy. I explored the influence of these disciplines in her work adopting an interdisciplinary approach. In particular I concentrate on the influence that her studies in etnomusicology have had on the style of her poetry. The theoretical framework of Julia Kristeva and Gian Biagio Conte enable me to draw two main intertexual strategies in Rosselli's poetry: the intertexuality of harmonics, and parody. Rosselli's use of literary allusion is a very original one: it is based on her work as a musicologist, which she articulates in the essay La serie degli armonici. In this essay Rosselli studied natural harmonics in music. Allusions develop into an intertextual fugue creating a mîse en abyme effect. Another type of allusion is the parody in which the poetic I acting as the fool challenges the literary fathers of Tradition in order to find her own space in the canon. The study of intertextuality has also some important consequences on a literary hystoriographic perspective: I recognized in her poetry what Detloff called 'the persistence of Modernism'. Her work like the one of Anglo-American modernists is characterized by a form of resilience to trauma and loss. Like the literature of survivors, Rosselli's deals with the expression of inexpressible, the fragmentation of the poetic I, and the will of re-writing her own story to overcome trauma. The ultimate result is a political and ethical cry for social justice, symphathy and peace.

À partir des années soixante-dix les femmes poètes s'affirment avec énergie dans le panorama littéraire italien. Bien que leur présence dans les anthologies les plus reconnues soit encore assez réduite, leurs écritures poétiques se caractérisent par une puissante originalité. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier ces productions poétiques tout en s'interrogeant sur la possibilité d'identifier des éléments communs. Il ne s'agit pas de définir une spécificité féminine dans une perspective essentialiste, mais d'interpréter certaines données textuelles en se référant à un contexte historique et culturel bien défini. Le corpus de travail comprends les œuvres des femmes poètes suivantes: Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996), Alda Merini (1931), Jolanda Insana (1937), Patrizia Cavalli (1947) et Patrizia Valduga (1953). Afin de respecter les singularités de chaque écriture poétique et d’éviter des simplifications réductrices, nous avons accordé la priorité à l'analyse textuelle et organisé les chapitres selon une approche monographique plutôt que thématique. L'analyse révèle que ces femmes poètes abordent avec obstination trois nœuds problématiques: elles développent une réflexion sur la valeur de la langue poétique, ont tendance à structurer leur poésie autour d'oppositions fortes et irréductibles, et, enfin, font souvent appel à des éléments de type théâtral. Ces caractéristiques sont interprétées en considérant le rapport ambigu et contradictoire que le sujet féminin entretient avec le code poétique: il ressent un fort besoin d'inscription dans la langue poétique, mais aussi un sens d'extranéité. Cette tradition qui lui est chère ne lui appartient pas complètement car il a été exclu de son élaboration. / As from the seventies women poets assert themselves with energy in the Italian literary survey. Even if their presence in the most famous anthologies is curtailed, their poetic writings are characterized by a powerful originality. The aim of this thesis is to study their poetic production inquiring into the possibility of common elements. It’s not about defining a female specificity from an essentialist point of view, the purpose is rather to interpret some textual data with reference to a well-defined historical and cultural context. The study corpus includes works of the following Italian woman poets: Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996), Alda Merini (1931), Jolanda Insana (1937), Patrizia Cavalli (1947) and Patrizia Valduga (1953). In order to respect the particularities of every writing and to avoid hasty and restrictive simplifications, a great importance has been conferred to the textual analysis and the chapters have been arranged according to a monographic approach rather than a thematic structure. The result of the research demonstrates that contemporary Italian women poets attend insistently three knotty problems: they develop a reflection about the power of poetic language, they display a tendency to structure their verse on strong oppositions without appeasing synthesis and they often resort to dramatic elements. These characteristics can be interpreted referring to the double and conflicting position of the female subject towards poetic code: this new subject needs to inscribe himself in the poetic language, but he also feels a sense of extraneousness. The tradition he loves doesn’t belong completely to him as he was left out of its elaboration.

After World War II in Italy the cultural scene was in need of resuscitation. Artists searched for tools with which to revifify their works. Central to this, for many key figures in the fifties and sixties, was an engagement with English-language Modernism. This phenomenon has been widely recognised, but this thesis is its first sustained analysis. I draw together the receptions of three English-language Modernist authors – T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and James Joyce – who, as a triad, were instrumental in the radicalisation of the arts in Italy in the fifties and sixties. I show that their works were elevated as models of an experimental approach to language that was revisited by Italian artists – most notably by poets associated with the Neoavantgarde. The specific Modernist linguistic techniques which were adopted by the Italians that we will consider here are the mingling of languages and styles, the use of citations, and the perversion and manipulation of single words and idioms. The poets considered in most depth to exemplify this phenomenon are Edoardo Sanguineti, who was a major exponent of the Neoavantgarde, and Amelia Rosselli, who was more peripherally and problematically associated with the movement. Both poets desecrated the traditional language of poetry and energised their own poetry with recourse to Modernist techniques which they consciously and deliberately adopted from Eliot, Pound and Joyce. An unpicking of the mechanics of these techniques in Sanguineti's and Rosselli's poetry reveals that their texts necessitate an active mode of reading. This aligns with the intellectual ideas propounded by Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes and Umberto Eco, all of whom grounded their theories on readership in analyses of the linguistic experiments of Modernism. Sanguineti's and Rosselli's poetry fulfil the characteristics of Eco's “open” work, Barthes' “polysemous” work, and bring about Benjamin's “shock-effect” in the reader. These radical linguistic techniques, appropriated from the Modernists, contribute to each poets' overall poetic projects – they enact Edoardo Sanguineti's anarchic and revolutionary impulses, and stage Amelia Rosselli's thematic conflicts.

Cotutelle Université de Montréal et Université Sorbonne Nouvelle / Ce travail se propose d’étudier la poésie d’Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996), de Toni Maraini (1941), de Dahlia Ravikovitch (1936-2005) et d’Yona Wallach (1944-1985) sous l’angle de la contestation. L’objectif principal est d’analyser l’hybridité poétique et son potentiel politico-contestataire chez ces femmes qui, à travers leur écriture, se rebellent contre les diktats du système patriarcal. L’après-guerre en Italie (Rosselli et Maraini) et la fondation de l’État d’Israël (Ravikovitch et Wallach), deux époques marquées par une forte valorisation du virilisme militariste et héroïque, constituent les contextes d’énonciation de ces œuvres. Selon notre hypothèse, c’est aussi en raison de cette valorisation du virilisme que l’expression poétique de ces femmes se conçoit comme une bataille : chacune à sa manière, les auteures aspirent à une révolution sociétale, concernant en particulier le statut des femmes et de leur écriture. Quelles sont les modalités de configuration de cette bataille, et comment celle-ci se reflète-t-elle dans la poésie de nos auteures ? Comment leur écriture s’exprime-t-elle en tant qu’espace de négociation au sein de la langue des pères ? Cette réflexion prendra la notion d’hybridité comme point de départ, examinant l’idée d’une expression contestataire qui émanerait des interstices mêmes du discours dominant (Bhabha). L’étude sera développée en trois parties principales. D’abord, il s’agira de montrer en quoi l’absorption et l’altération du langage masculin peuvent être utilisées par les femmes comme un outil de révolte aboutissant à un langage renouvelé. Ensuite sera abordée une autre manière, plus subtile, de s’approprier la langue et le pouvoir masculins : l’appropriation et l’ingestion du corpus des hommes, entendu au double sens de matière littéraire (intertextualité) et de corps stricto sensu (cannibalisme). Enfin, nous verrons comment le sujet-femme se déplace à la conquête de l’espace et du temps – ceux-ci étant définis comme des dimensions du privilège masculin – qu’elle hybride aussi. Nous constaterons que la traduction est consubstantielle à cette opération d’hybridation : l’acte traduisant se réalise par une nouvelle cannibalisation du corpus, lequel est alors déplacé vers une autre dimension spatio-temporelle, elle aussi conséquemment hybridée. En étudiant des textes en langue originale (italien, français, hébreu) et dans leurs langues de traduction (anglais, français, italien), nous verrons comment celle-ci agit comme une caisse de résonnance pour poursuivre le geste originaire de bataille et le prolonger dans une autre dynamique à même d’en amplifier le caractère hybride et d’en attiser la flamme contestataire. À travers ces nouvelles pistes interprétatives qui mettent de l’avant la dimension subversive de la poésie de ces auteures, ce travail démontre comment, substituant aux catégories fixes imposées par la société patriarcale une vision plus fluide du monde, l’écriture hybride des femmes fait de la page un espace révolutionnaire depuis lequel un nouveau paradigme peut surgir. / This thesis analyzes the poetry of Amelia Rosselli (1930–1996), Toni Maraini (1941), Dahlia Ravikovitch (1936–2005), and Yona Wallach (1944–1985) from the angle of protest. The main aim of this research is to study the subversive potential of poetic hybridity, as it shows in the work of these women poets. Through their writing, in fact, they rebel against the dictates of the patriarchal system. The context of these works are post-war Italy (Rosselli and Maraini) and the founding of the State of Israel (Ravikovitch and Wallach), both periods marked by militarist virilism and heroic values. According to my hypothesis, such virilism is one of the reasons why the poetic expression of these women is conceived as a battle. Each in their own way, the authors aspire to a social revolution, which focuses on the status of women and their writing. Which shapes does this battle take, and how is it reflected in the poetry of these authors? How is their writing expressed as a space for negotiation within the language of the fathers? Starting from the notion of hybridity, this thesis investigates the idea of a protest expression emanating from the interstices of the dominant discourse (Bhabha). This work is divided into three main parts. Firstly, I show how women appropriate and alter male language as a tool of dissent, thus creating a renovated language. Secondly, I focus on the appropriation and ingestion of the corpus of men: both in the sense of literary material (intertextuality), and as body stricto sensu (cannibalism). Finally, I analyze how the woman-subject conquers and hybridizes space and time, which have been normally defined by male privilege. The act of translation is directly connected with the process of hybridization. Translating, in fact, resolves in a new cannibalization of the corpus, which is then moved to another space-time dimension. By approaching the texts in the original languages (Italian, French, Hebrew), as well as their translations (English, French, Italian), I show how the translation acts as a sounding box, amplifying the original intention of battle. Thanks to these new interpretive trajectories, focusing on the subversive dimension of these authors’ poetry, this work highlights the transformative power of substituting fixed categories imposed by patriarchal society with a more fluid vision of the world. Thus, the hybrid writing of women has the potential to transform the written page into a revolutionary space from which a new paradigm can emerge.