The paper is a close reading of Anna Maria Ortese’s Short Story Un paio di occhiali, ensued from the volume Il mare non bagna Napoli, first published in 1951 in Einaudi’s collection «I Gettoni», directed and edited by Elio Vittorini. The book, considered as a neorealist work, fostered such violent attacks that Ortese was compelled to leave Naples, where she would not return for the rest of her life. A similar polemic sprang out in the nineties, when a new edition of Il mare non bagna Napoli was published by Adelphi. Some critics found her short stories disturbing and even Vittorini had previously deemed Un paio di occhiali as too « naturalistic ». The author tries to demonstrate that the Short Story, and even the book as a whole, cannot be considered as neorealist : analysing style, narrative voices and points of view, she shows how Ortese manages to create a narrative mode based upon the use of realistic tools, but at the same time aimed at destroying any realistic illusion. Thus, Un paio di occhiali can be considered as an exemplary work, which anticipated the crisis of neorealist poetic.

Narrare contro il reale. Un paio di occhiali di Anna Maria Ortese (1951)

Cristina Savettieri
2010-01-01

Abstract

The paper is a close reading of Anna Maria Ortese’s Short Story Un paio di occhiali, ensued from the volume Il mare non bagna Napoli, first published in 1951 in Einaudi’s collection «I Gettoni», directed and edited by Elio Vittorini. The book, considered as a neorealist work, fostered such violent attacks that Ortese was compelled to leave Naples, where she would not return for the rest of her life. A similar polemic sprang out in the nineties, when a new edition of Il mare non bagna Napoli was published by Adelphi. Some critics found her short stories disturbing and even Vittorini had previously deemed Un paio di occhiali as too « naturalistic ». The author tries to demonstrate that the Short Story, and even the book as a whole, cannot be considered as neorealist : analysing style, narrative voices and points of view, she shows how Ortese manages to create a narrative mode based upon the use of realistic tools, but at the same time aimed at destroying any realistic illusion. Thus, Un paio di occhiali can be considered as an exemplary work, which anticipated the crisis of neorealist poetic.
2010
Savettieri, Cristina
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11568/987976
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