Nuova DWF. Donna Woman Femme
Quaderni di studi internazionali sulla donna
Roma, Coines Edizioni, then Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1976-1985

Women and Literature, 1977, n. 5

EDITORIAL, pp. 3-4

A series of questions are asked concerning the topic addressed in this issue; especially, what is woman's relationship with language and with literary expression, what - if anything - does she do differently? A brief introduction to the essays collected here is then offered.

FUSINI Nadia, Women and "Making Poetry", pp. 5-21

Woman's position in the language, her role in (and her exclusion from) the literary scene, the peculiar relationship she entertains with the act of writing: these are the questions behind this essay. It is, first of all, an attempt to put into the right terms the problem to which this issue of "nuova dwf" is dedicated. The essay means to make visible the subterranean, therefore invisible, journey which has led to formulate that question. It starts, then, by opposing those theories which have stopped, and blocked, the discourse, forcing the woman against old associations (woman = nature, woman = passivity, woman = silence): and it continues following the restless self-questioning Virginia Woolf goes through in the pages of her diary, where a particularly relevant place is given to the act of writing itself, and to its deep implications with the symbolic order. Especially when writing does not abdicate to show the body, its sexuality, its difference. It's in the name of this difference, no longer hidden, and in the name of this sexuality, no longer written out of the text, that the woman upsets the language, and obliges it to rethink about her.

PAGLIANO UNGARI Graziella, Women and Literature: Methodological Notes, pp. 22-28

Wishing to undertake a research on the relationship: woman / literature, according to the author, it is important to consider different fields of analysis. Initially, one has to make definite the comparisons between the analysis of creativity and the process of writing with the material situations of women writers and with the whole literary system. Indeed, it is not casual that, if it is true that literature compared to science, philosophy, politics. etc., has represented a field open to women, that field has been limited to certain literary types specially connected with the expression of affection and irrationality - autobiography, lyrics, novel - whereas the "noble types" - tragedy, epics etc. - have been denied to women. Because women have been subdued and also been denied the freedom of speech. This fact has so be taken into consideration by the critic: theoretical, political and social deficiencies, especially in terms of lack of a global vision of the world able so give a proper structure to the text, has influenced the literary product of women writers. To sum it up, what are the functions of literary critique made by women? To analyse the way of access to literary production (and the obstacles to it), to explore the meaning of the results and the new horizons opened by the writers; to give an interpretation of more or less well known literary texts, basing critique on the destiny of the feminine figures; to take in account the functions of women-readers considering at the same time the specific demand of the literary system.

GENTILI Vanna, The Imaginary versus Desdemona, pp. 29-54

In the nineteenth century Desdemona was regarded as the most "passive" - and therefore the most pathetic - of Shakespeare's heroines. There was also a good deal of insistence upon her falling in love with Othello's "mind" in spite of his physical aspect. Such idealisation is to be connected with Victorian race-consciousness and also seems to be a way of exorcising any hint of a disturbing kind of female sexuality. These views - which ultimately come so coincide with Giraldi Cinzio's point on Desdemona's lack of "female appetite" - have influenced stage productions and literary evaluations as well as the common notion of Desdemona's character until recent times. The reading of the play we now propose is based on the contrast between Desdemona's self-assurance, deriving from conscious social emancipation, and her sexual unawareness. Her total identification with the role of a "modern", perfect Prince's wife keeps her "above", while the dramatic conflict and action take place "below" and are fomented by the ways and forms in which her sexuality is guessed at, imagined and presented by the different male characters. The contrast is a tragic one, and Desdemona's predicament originates from it. Ironically, the other two female characters of the play, Emilia and Bianca, unwillingly cooperate to the building up of the heroine's predicament and to a certain extent share her conditions of "acting-acted on", woman.

NOZZOLI Anna, Italian feminist novel in 70-ies, pp. 55-74

Novels and short stories impressed by feminism, according to the Author, not only reflect the realities of present social and political context - as represents the women's movement - but are also an instrument of diffusion on a large scale of feminine conscience. To feminist narration - for its nature of production "autre" - one cannot apply the customary instruments of literary research. The text has to be read and evaluated on the grounds of its historical and cultural significance, renouncing esthetical prejudices and aprioristical aversions owing to "conventional" code of interpretation. An analysis of feminist literary production, in a particular way of narration, has to insist mainly on the interdependence with the political movement. Indeed, the lines and contents of the most recent italian feminist narration - in this essay are considered the novels of Dacia Maraini, Giuliana Ferri, Armanda Guiducci, Luisella Fiumi, Gabriella Magrini and Carla Cerati - relate to the topics dealt with by the women's movement. The main topic is that of division between public and private sphere and the possibility of recomposition. This subject in the novel appears as a personal report in some cases in the form of a diary of auto-conscience, shouted out in the novels of Dacia Maraini, written in a tormented way in the other writers. According to the author, the fact that the writers speak in the first person and use a memorial technique constitute the main characters of feminist novel which using the autobiography as a means of knowledge, seems to display the narration level the forms of auto-analysis used by the feminist movement in the political struggle.

ALIMENTI Alessandro - FALTERI Paola, Women and traditional culture in lower classes, pp. 75-104

The authors have carried out an empirical research on the popular traditions relative to medicine in Central Italy. In this script they demonstrate the woman's role in the use of popular medicine, her knowledge of methods and of natural medical herbs. It shows also how woman has been the object of prohibitions and taboos in relation to certain stages of her physical life: menstruation, pregnancy, delivery and breast feeding. For this reason the Authors cite the customs and the beliefs of the peasant population of Central Italy. They present them in a historical perspective comparing their experiences to those of researches on folklore made by doctors and amateurs at the end of the last century and the beginning of the present. They give a clear picture on the situation, which however does not prove the existence of a medical power, according to a wide spread interpretation of the women's movement, held by women in the past and lost with the rise of the institutions of medical science. (The same explication is given also for the persecution of witches). The research on which this article is based on the contrary asserts that women have been "the guardians" of therapeutics and of magical medical knowledge rather than the rulers.

BREMNER J. William, DE KRETSER David M., Male Contraception, pp. 105-117

This article, with a critical introduction by Simonetta Tosi, offers a survey on the different techniques of male contraception. A preliminary exposition of male reproductive physiology helps the reader so understand the mechanism and the risks of each type of contraception. The traditional forms of male contraception, the "coitus interruptus", prophylactics and vasectomy more and more perfected, tend to be replaced by different types of oral contraception, still in phase of experimentation, described in this article.

ERGAS Yasmine, The Women Movement and the Institutions, pp. 119-126

A further contribution on the topic addressed in n. 4. Assuming as her starting point that feminism as a social movement is founded on a radical critique of politics, the author analyses the transformations of the feminist movement since its beginnings, taking into account its relationship with the New Left and with traditional political parties.

MANIERI Maria Rosaria, The Women's Movement and the Institutions, pp. 127-129

A further contribution on the topic addressed in n. 4. The author underlines the necessity of a full-scope analysis of the present crisis of Italian society, maintaining that the problem now is not choosing between a total refusal or an a-critical acceptance of the institutions; rather, the question is how to highlight the man-woman contradiction within the institutions and within the formal egalitarianism of the democratic system.