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This book examines the oevre of Anna Maria Ortese (1914-1998) from her first literary writings in the Thirties to her great novels in the Nineties. The analysis focusses on two interweaving core themes, loss and the Other. It begins with the shaping of personal loss of an Other following death, separation, abandonment, coupled with melancholy for life's transience as depicted in autobiographical works and in her masterpiece <em>Il porto di Toledo. The book then addresses Ortese's literary engagement with social themes in realist stories set in post-war Naples in her collection <em>Il mare non <em>bagna Napoli and then explores her continuing preoccupation with socio-ethical issues, imbued with autobiographical elements, in non-realist texts, including her masterful novels <em>L'Iguana, <em>Il cardillo addolorato and <em>Alonso e i visionariThe book combines theme and genre analysis, highlighting Ortese's adoption and hybridization of diverse literary forms such as poetry, the novel, the short story, the essay, autobiography, realism, fairy tales, fantasy, allegory. In her work Ortese weaves an ongoing dialogue with literary and non-literary works, through direct quotations, allusions, echoes, adoption of motifs and topoi. The book thus highlights the intertextual relationship with her sources: Leopardi, Dante, Petrarch, Manzoni, Collodi, Montale, Serao; Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, Blake, Joyce, Conrad, Melville, Poe, Hawthorne, Hardy; Manrique, Gongora, de Quevedo, Villalon, Bello, Cantar del mio Cid; Heine, Valery, Puccini's Madam Butterfly, folklore, popular songs, and the Bible. Ortese thus shapes her literary themes in the background of social, political and economic upheavals over six decades of Italian history, culminating in an allegorical critique of modernity and a call for a renewed bond between humans and the Other.
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O X F O R D M O D E R N L A N G U AG ES A N D L I T E R A T U R E MO N O G R A P H S Editorial Committee a. kahn k. m. kohl m. l. mclaughlin i. w. f. macle an r. a. g. pearson m. sheringham j. thacker Loss and the Other in the Visionary Work of Anna Maria Ortese VILMA DE GASPERIN 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Vilma De Gasperin 2014 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013947874 ISBN 978–0–19–967381–0 Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. a Diego Acknowledgements While writing this book I have benefite