Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Literary geographies of the boom: perceptions of space in post-war Italian literature (1956–1979)

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Brecciaroli, Giulia (2018) Literary geographies of the boom: perceptions of space in post-war Italian literature (1956–1979). PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP_Theses_Brecciaroli_2018.pdf - Submitted Version - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (1507Kb) | Preview
Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3423482~S15

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

This research offers an account of the post-war transition in Italy through different literary voices, belonging to various genres, and their original and complementary narration of post-war Italy’s changing geography. Two chapters of the dissertation concentrate on Milan and Turin, the expanding industrial cities of the North, in the novels of Bianciardi (La vita agra, 1962), Volponi (Memoriale, 1962; Le mosche del capitale, 1989), Scerbanenco (Venere privata, 1966; Traditori di tutti, 1966; I ragazzi del massacro, 1968; I milanesi ammazzano al sabato, 1969) and Fruttero & Lucentini (La donna della domenica, 1972; A che punto è la notte, 1979). The focus of the last chapter broadens to embrace the socio-cultural landscape of the country, through the analysis of post-war Italian travel writing and the specific examples of Piovene (Viaggio in Italia, 1957), Ortese (La lente scura, 1991) and Arbasino (Fratelli d’Italia, 1963).

The exploration of literary geographies, corroborated by theories of space in contemporary societies, is functional to challenge narrations of the boom as chiefly a time of growing prosperity and optimism, and instead exposes ambiguous feelings about Italian modernity. The post-war years are seen as a period in which feelings of hope and anxiety coexist and inter-mingle, and where existential uncertainty provides a driving force for the examined authors to challenge accepted ways of seeing and being, in the framework of the postmodern theories that are slowly infiltrating the Italian cultural debate in those years. Coherently with the interpretation of the boom as a ‘space of cultural transition’ (Minghelli, 2016), the texts are somewhat suspended between past, of which they retain some central thematics (alienation, anxiety) and future, as some of the arguments that shape the postmodern sensitivity can be traced between the lines, in the tension toward a different understanding of modernity. The innovative selection of authors and genres sheds new light on the inconsistencies of post-war development, as well as reframing key issues in post-war Italian society, such as the inability to incorporate a critical reflection upon the past into the process of nation and identity building in this crucial moment of the country’s history.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Subjects: P Language and Literature > PQ Romance literatures
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Italian literature -- 20th century, Geography in literature, Travelers' writings, Italian, Italy -- History -- 20th century
Official Date: September 2018
Dates:
DateEvent
September 2018UNSPECIFIED
Institution: University of Warwick
Theses Department: School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Thesis Type: PhD
Publication Status: Unpublished
Sponsors: Burns, Jennifer
Format of File: pdf
Extent: 219 leaves
Language: eng

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us