Loss and the Other in the Visionary Work of Anna Maria Ortese

Abstract

This book examines the œuvre of Anna Maria Ortese (1914–98) from her first literary writings in the 1930s to her great novels in the 1990s. It focuses on two interweaving core themes, loss and the Other, arguing that Ortese’s work begins with the shaping of the personal loss of an Other following death, separation, abandonment, coupled with melancholy for life’s transience, as is depicted in autobiographical stories and in Il porto di Toledo. The book then addresses Ortese’s literary engagement with social issues in her realist stories set in post-war Naples, primarily in her collection Il mare non bagna Napoli. It then explores her continuing preoccupation with socio‐ethical issues, imbued with autobiographical elements, in non‐realist texts, including a selection of short pieces and her masterful novels L’Iguana, Il cardillo addolorato, and Alonso e i visionari. The book combines thematic, linguistic, and genre analysis, highlighting Ortese’s adoption and hybridization of diverse literary genres such as poetry, the novel, the short story, the essay, autobiography, realism, fairy tales, fantasy, allegory. In also brings to light Ortese’s ongoing dialogue with literary and non‐literary works, through direct quotations, allusions, echoes, adoption of motifs and topoi, all contributing towards the shaping of loss and her increasing ethical engagement. The book thus highlights the intertextual relationship with her sources from Italian, European, and American literature, the Bible, and non‐literary sources, reflecting social and economic upheavals, culminating in an allegorical critique of modernity and a call for a renewed bond between humans and the vulnerable Other.