This paper deals with the topic of historical inheritance and literary discourse through a prismatic lens. On the one hand, it focuses on Nadine Gordimer, one of South Africa’s most acclaimed and authoritative figures. A white writer of Anglo-Jewish and Eastern European origins, she always stood up against racism and the colonialist legacy which deviously paved the way for the apartheid system in her country. In particular, light is shed on “The Amateurs”, one of her earliest short stories and a piercing portrayal of South African segregation policies during the 1940s. At the same time, Gordimer engages here in a critical dialogue with the English fin de siècle and the comedy-of-manners genre by recollecting an episode from her youth, when she happened to play Gwendolen’s role in an amateur staging of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”. As we shall see, “The Amateurs” is a semantically poignant story where the threads of European literary tradition, metatheatricality and personal memory are powerfully interwoven.

L’articolo affronta il tema dell’eredità storica e del discorso letterario attraverso una lente prismatica. Da un lato, l’analisi si focalizza su Nadine Gordimer, autrice sudafricana particolarmente nota e stimata. Scrittrice bianca di origini anglo-ebraiche con ramificazioni nell’Europa dell’Est, Gordimer si è sempre opposta al razzismo e all’impronta colonialista che, in Sudafrica, hanno stretto una subdola alleanza con il sistema dell’apartheid. Oggetto di studio è, nello specifico, “The Amateurs”, uno dei suoi primi racconti e ritratto corrosivo delle politiche di segregazione razziale negli anni Quaranta del Novecento. Dall’altro lato, Gordimer intesse qui un dialogo critico con la fin de siècle britannica e il genere della “comedy of manners” rievocando un episodio di gioventù, quando recitò nel ruolo di Gwendolen in una messa in scena amatoriale di “The Importance of Being Earnest” di Oscar Wilde. Come vedremo, “The Amateurs” è una storia semanticamente connotata in cui, con graffiante efficacia, si intrecciano le fila della tradizione letteraria europea, di strategie metateatrali e del ricordo personale.

Wild(e) on Stage: Manipulated Scripts and Suppressed Truths in Nadine Gordimer’s “The Amateurs”

LAURA GIOVANNELLI
2023-01-01

Abstract

This paper deals with the topic of historical inheritance and literary discourse through a prismatic lens. On the one hand, it focuses on Nadine Gordimer, one of South Africa’s most acclaimed and authoritative figures. A white writer of Anglo-Jewish and Eastern European origins, she always stood up against racism and the colonialist legacy which deviously paved the way for the apartheid system in her country. In particular, light is shed on “The Amateurs”, one of her earliest short stories and a piercing portrayal of South African segregation policies during the 1940s. At the same time, Gordimer engages here in a critical dialogue with the English fin de siècle and the comedy-of-manners genre by recollecting an episode from her youth, when she happened to play Gwendolen’s role in an amateur staging of Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”. As we shall see, “The Amateurs” is a semantically poignant story where the threads of European literary tradition, metatheatricality and personal memory are powerfully interwoven.
2023
Giovannelli, Laura
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11568/1191707
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