Espacio, Tiempo y Educación

15-30

Authors: Antonella Cagnolati

The Seventies witnessed a renewed scientific interest in the literary genre of autobiography, even by researchers in disciplinary areas not strictly philological or literary. But, if often autobiographical narrative is used as a legitimation of a personal choice – especially in ethical and political realm – in the most recent works, the resurgence of “women’s pages” and the concomitant successful researches by scholars in different fields (history, education, and literature) have made their way to a reformulation of the value of the autobiography itself, not only as a meta-historical issue led to the formation of a national identity, but increasingly as a powerful key to introspection. Once women have become masters in this literary genre, autobiographies have become instruments to capture the inner self and categories have largely diverted to a more intimate life, in a space apart to better hear themselves. Interest in the autobiographies was born under this gender difference: descending into the abyss of the female autobiographical writings can illuminate parts of real life, guess censorship, look closely at the passing of everyday experience. The writer’s life is moving in this complex space, a place where desires for personal fulfillment usually fight against family responsibilities and social engagements, with traditional educational models and new projects for the future. Acting in this context is not simple, nor easy, because sometimes the strategies that women still represent are defined as coercive, more as resignations than options. The autobiographies analyzed in the essays that follow, give us examples of rebellion and revolt – more or less openly – put into action not to resign to inequality, especially when not only social rules refer to ways and times exclusively male, but when this injustice is seen in its full tragic sense. Then, rebellion in deeds and words is unavoidable and necessary.

55-75

Authors: Caterina Del Vivo

Laura Orvieto (Milan 1876 - Florence 1953), children’s writer, always loved telling stories. She asked everyone to tell her stories and, if she couldn’t find anyone available, she told stories to younger children. These stories were inspired by the many books she read and by the fairy tales told by old women. As an adult, once a writer, her most successful work was inspired by classical mythology and the small adventures of her own children. But in the second half of the 1930s many things changed for a family from the Florentine Jewish middle classes, with the increasing pressure of racial marginalization. In around 1936 Laura decided to abandon her usual themes, and instead to turn to her origins and tell her own story, and that of her husband Angiolo and their respective families. The Storia di Angiolo e Laura is written in a simple and direct style, close to Orvieto’s other work. But in the final pages she allows space for statements that illustrate her painful crisis of conscience. Today we can ask to what extent these pages reflect a real biographical journey: other sources complete, confirm or deny the events and states of mind expressed in the book. A parallel reading of a few chapters and other documents reveals less well-known aspects of the thinking and frame of mind of Laura and her family and illustrates her working methods.

97-113

Authors: Lucilla Gigli

The life and works of Anna Franchi remained undiscovered for a long time despite the writer desired to become part of history and to leave a trace both in the socialist and in the emancipa­tionist movements. In the literary production of Anna Franchi, autobiographical elements and fictions become an inseparable issue. Particularly in her biography La mia vita (My life) pub­lished for the first time in 1940 the writer looked through her life searching for a deeper meaning. Franchi does not limit to describe events and characters but, through narration, she gives an interpretation of her own experience giving in the same time a meaning to it: from her childhood when she ab­sorbs and adopts the ideals of the Risorgimento and the love for art and literature to the long and extremely painful period of her marriage; from journalistic and artistic activities to the political commitment with the socialist party and the movement for women’s rights. Through her works, Franchi provides a political example of free woman

135-152

Authors: Rossella Caso

«Behind every face there is a destiny, behind every image there is a story»: a portrait of Bianca Pitzorno, between literature and autobiography