Alda Merini: stigma and the struggle for authority as a woman writer

Zinnari, A. (2023) Alda Merini: stigma and the struggle for authority as a woman writer. In: Hecker, S. and Ramsey-Portolano, C. (eds.) Female Cultural Production in Modern Italy: Literature, Art and Intellectual History. Series: Italian and Italian American studies. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, pp. 173-187. ISBN 9783031148156 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-14816-3_11)

Abstract

In her unpublished letters, author Alda Merini reflects on the limitations of being both a woman poet and a former psychiatric patient in a society dominated by misogyny and discrimination. In this chapter, I will analyze Merini’s later writings, and in particular her letters, to explore the challenges that she faced as a woman writer in twentieth-century Italy. I will focus on Merini’s (re)construction of her authorial self after nearly 20 years of poetic silence, and on her relationship with her literary editors and mentors, Maria Corti and Giacinto Spagnoletti—relationships in which she struggled to assert her authority. I will ultimately argue that Merini used her writing as a tool to negotiate her agency in both the publishing industry and society.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Zinnari, Dr Alessia
• Authors: Zinnari, A.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Modern Languages and Cultures > Italian
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• ISBN: 9783031148156
• Published Online: 13 April 2023