The Performative Power of Narrative in Goliarda Sapienza’s Lettera aperta, L’arte della gioia and Io, Jean Gabin

Abstract

This article investigates Goliarda Sapienza’s distinctive use of narrative as ‘performative’, focusing on narrative voice and structures in three works: Lettera aperta, L’arte della gioia and Io, Jean Gabin. The analysis postulates an evolution from a performative and deeply unstable narrating ‘I’ to the reinforced narrating voice and identity of an anarchist artist. In the analysis of narrative voice and structures, I draw on Adriana Cavarero’s notions of voice and narration and Jean-Claude Coquet’s reflections on body and language; I also employ Mark Turner’s concept of ‘blended space’ and Peter Brooks’ insights on plot and teleology. Sapienza’s narrative incorporates characteristics of both modernism and postmodernism in a highly disrupted and open narrative. It is, however, in transcending the same and giving voice to a conception of performative identity capable of producing agency and emancipation that the significant originality of Sapienza’s narrative lies.