Italian Literature Commons^™

Penelope’S Daughters, Barbara Dell`Abate-Çelebi

Zea E-Books Collection

A feminist perspective of the myth of Penelope in Annie Leclerc’s Toi, Pénélope, Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and Silvana La Spina’s Penelope.

At the origin of Western literature stands Queen Penelope—faithfully waiting for her husband to come home: keeping house, holding on to the throne, keeping the suitors at arm’s length, preserving Odysseus’ place and memory, deserted for the pursuit of war and adventures, and bringing up a son alone, but always keeping the marriage intact. Yet recently the character of Penelope, long the archetype of abandoned, faithful, submissive, passive wife, has been reinterpreted by feminist criticism and re-envisioned by …

Cristina Trivulzio Di Belgiojoso's Western Feminism: The Poetics Of A Nineteenth-Century Nomad, Claire Marrone

Languages Faculty Publications

The ninettenth-century Italian activist, feminist, and Princess, Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso, expressed her views on gender and politics through writing and through action. Included in Belgiojoso's corpus are not only travel writings, fiction and letters, but also texts on religion, history and politics. The tale Emina (1856), which shall be the focus of this study, emerged from the Princess's eleven-month journey across Turkey and Syria to regions little known to Westerners at the time -- to European women in particular. Belgiojoso's political convictions, and her experiences as a social reformer in Italy and Turke set the scene for Emina and …