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Gendered Quests: Analysis, Revelation And The Epistemology Of Gender In Neera's "Teresa", "Lydia" And "L'Indomani", Silvia Valisa

Silvia Valisa

This essay is devoted to Milanese fin-de-siècle writer Neera, more specifically to the three novels composing her “ciclo della donna giovane” (the young woman’s cycle). I examine the striking similarity of the epistemological projects of the three heroines, i.e. their attempt to combine an analytical project with a revelatory structure in order to overcome their contradictory status of narrative subjects and social objects. I consider these projects "gendered" in that they are quests disturbed by a structural and epistemological bias that forecloses a full access to experience and knowledge. The different outcomes of the quests are determined by these women’s …