Abstract
In “Writing Trauma, History, and the (Dis/Re)Appearance of the Body in Cutrufelli’s La briganta,” Sandra Waters contemplates the ways in which Cutrufelli’s novel uses elements of the conventional (male) historical novel, but more importantly extends its focus to consider how history is constructed and remembered. She thus pays particular attention to how the female subject relates to it. Waters concludes that the heroine’s first-person recounting of the series of traumatic experiences she undergoes as a woman within the context of Sicilian brigandage and the Risorgimento exposes how she transgresses her society’s rigid gender roles to achieve self-actualization.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Works Cited
Carol, Lazzaro-Weis. From Margins to Mainstream: Feminism and Fictional Modes in Italian Women’s Writing, 1968–1990. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
———. Women’s Histories, Women’s Stories: The Italian Case. In Women’s Writing in Western Europe: Gender, Generation and Legacy, eds. Adalgisa Giorgio and Julia Waters, 312–33. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2007.
Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996.
Cutrufelli, Maria Rosa. La briganta. Palermo: La Luna, 1990.
———. La briganta. Torino: Frassinelli, 2005.
———. The Woman Outlaw. Trans. Angela M. Jeannet. Mineola, NY: Legas, 2004.
DiGiulio, Cinzia. Travesties of Risorgimento in Maria Rosa Cutrufelli’s La briganta. In Risorgimento in Modern Italian Culture: Revisiting the Nineteenth-Century Past in History, Narrative, and Cinema, ed. Norma Bouchard, 133–48. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2005.
Gribaudi, Gabriella. Images of the South. In Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction, eds. David Forgacs and Robert Lumley, 72–87. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
Jeannet, Angela M. Introduction to The Woman Outlaw, by Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, 9–16. Mineola, NY: Legas, 2004.
LaCapra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.
Moe, Nelson. ‘This is Africa’: Ruling and Representing Southern Italy, 1860–61. In Making and Remaking Italy: The Cultivation of National Identity around the Risorgimento, eds. Albert Russell Ascoli and Krystyna von Henneberg, 120–21. New York: Berg, 2001.
Nievo, Ippolito. Le confessioni d’un Italiano. Milano: Garzanti, 1996.
Rossi, Monica. Rethinking History: Women’s Transgression in Maria Rosa Cutrufelli’s La briganta. In Gendering Italian Fiction: Feminist Revisions of Italian History, eds. Maria Ornella Marotti and Gabriella Brooke, 202–22. Madison and Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1999.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Waters, S. (2017). Writing History, Trauma, and the (Dis/Re) Appearance of the Body in Cutrufelli’s La briganta . In: Picchietti, V., Salsini, L. (eds) Writing and Performing Female Identity in Italian Culture . Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40835-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40835-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40834-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40835-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)