Tigress in the Snow: Motherhood and Literature in Twentieth-Century Italy
© 2009
The Tigress in the Snow explores how literature reacted to, influenced, and shaped the evolving notion of motherhood in twentieth-century Italy.
From the late-nineteenth century rhetorical celebration of the mother as Madonna, to the Fascist regime's demographic campaign and feminist revisions of the maternal role, Laura Benedetti shows how the mother's social status was a site of constant negotiation in Italy during the last century and how this negotiation came to be represented in literature. To illustrate her theme, she stresses both similarities and differences among four generations of women writers, as well as their complex interaction with their male counterparts, and their reactions to changes in Italian society.
The Tigress in the Snow highlights literature's role in the formation of cultural discourses right up to the dawn of the twenty-first century. An intriguing look at the changing nature of motherhood in a country that has always valued the maternal institution, this volume goes further to show how literature investigates, shapes, and envisions social models for the present and future.
Product Details
- World Rights
- Page Count: 176 pages
- Dimensions: 6.0in x 0.4in x 8.9in
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Reviews
'Benedetti focuses her analysis of motherhood in Italian literature on texts written primarily by women authors ranging from early years of the twentieth century to the late 1990s... the result is a fascinating and perceptive analysis of a theme that is a collective obsession in Italian culture.'
Rebecca West
Modern Philology: vol 108:04:2011
’Laura Benedetti has written a well-documented and informative study illuminating the importance of motherhood in understanding the ’difference‘ in Italian women's writings as well as the ’difference‘ in Italian feminist theory. She presents a broad and comprehensive picture of the complex interaction between different generations of women writers, their male counterparts, and changes in Italian culture throughout the twentieth century. The Tigress in the Snow delivers insightful literary analyses that will be of great use to students and scholars.‘
Carol Lazzaro-Weis, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Missouri-Columbia'The Tigress in the Snow provides a complete overview of Italian women writers in the twentieth century, as well as individual treatments of particular writers, their major works, and their literary characteristics. It is the first study to deal exclusively with the subject of motherhood and Italian literature, and it does so with a clear understanding of the cultural background out of which the writers dealt with conceived their works. Laura Benedetti's writing is extremely engaging and vivid, and reading her work is not only informative but a real pleasure.'
Pietro Frassica, Department of French and Italian, Princeton University'The Tigress in the Snow provides a complete overview of Italian women writers in the twentieth century, as well as individual treatments of particular writers, their major works, and their literary characteristics. It is the first study to deal exclusively with the subject of motherhood and Italian literature, and it does so with a clear understanding of the cultural background out of which the writers dealt with conceived their works. Laura Benedetti's writing is extremely engaging and vivid, and reading her work is not only informative but a real pleasure.'
Pietro Frassica, Department of French and Italian, Princeton University -
Author Information
Laura Benedetti is the Laura and Gaetano De Sole associate professor in Contemporary Italian Culture at Georgetown University. -
Table of contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 31 Mothers at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century 12
The New Mother 12
From Mother to Daughter: Annie Vivanti's The Devourers 23
The Mother as Artist: Luigi Pirandello's Suo marito 25
A Revolution Named Sibilla 28
Self-Sacrifice and Marian Imagery 32
The Invisible Working Woman 3 92 Resilience and Resistance: The Fascist Years 43
From Benevolence to Dominance 43
Literature and the Escape from History 45
Mothers without a Name and the Search for Women's Identity 47
Mothers at War 52
'Like War Is to Men' 58
Future as a Revised Version of the Past 60
No Turning Back 673 Questioning Motherhood 74
Slow Changes 74
The Tigress in the Snow 78
'Una Maternità Sociale': The Upheaval of the 1970s 84
Too Close, Too Far: Motherhood as a Dialogue with the Self 894 Struggling with the Mother 94
Through the Daughters' Voices 94
The Mother and the City 102
Daughter and Mother 1105 Mothers without Children 114
From Flesh to Phantom 114
The Symbolic Order of the Mother 116
A World of Mothers 119Notes 123
Works Cited 149
Index 161
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Prizes
Ennio Flaiano Book Prize awarded by the Directors of Italian Culture Institutes in the U.S. - Winner in 2008 -
Subjects and Courses
