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An ‘utterly concrete and yet impalpable’ Art: The Early Reception of Katherine Mansfield in Italy (1922–1952)

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Katherine Mansfield and Continental Europe

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Abstract

In the years following the death of Katherine Mansfield, the critical appreciation of her works was deeply influenced by the romantic appeal of her tragically short and intense life story, thanks also to the large number of letters and private writings that were made available to the public. I am of course referring to John Middleton Murry’s editions of Mansfield’s Journal (1927), Letters (1928), Scrapbook (1939) and Letters to John Middleton Murry (1951),1 but I am also thinking of the many biographical works that were published in the same period.2

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Notes

  1. The ‘definitive edition’ of the Journal was published only in 1954. John Middleton Murry, ed., The Journal of Katherine Mansfield 1904–1922: Definitive Edition (London: Constable, 1954).

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  2. Regardless of Murry’s previous editorial constructions, Mansfield’s notebooks and unbound papers were subsequently collected and edited by Margaret Scott in The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks, 2 vols (Canterbury and Wellington: Lincoln University Press and Daphne Brasell Associates, 1997).

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  3. See Ruth E. Mantz and John Middleton Murry, The Life of Katherine Mansfield (London: Constable, 1933) — the book was soon translated into French as La Jeunesse de Katherine Mansfield (Paris: Stock, 1935);

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  4. Francis Carco, Souvenirs sur Katherine Mansfield (Paris: Le Divan, 1934);

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  5. Isabel Clarke, Six Portraits (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1935);

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  6. John Middleton Murry, Between Two Worlds: An Autobiography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935);

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  7. Harold Beauchamp, Reminiscences and Recollections (Plymouth, NZ: Thomas Avery, 1937);

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  8. Nelia Gardner White, Daughter of Time: The Life of Katherine Mansfield in Novel Form (London: Constable, 1942);

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  9. Isabel Clarke, Katherine Mansfield: A Biography (Wellington, NZ: The Beltane Book Bureau, 1944) (the original version of this biography had been published in Clarke’s Six Portraits);

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  10. Anne Friis, Katherine Mansfield: Life and Stories (Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard,1946);

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  11. Odette Lenoël, La Vocation de Katherine Mansfield (Paris: Seuil, 1946);

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  12. John Middleton Murry, Katherine Mansfield and Other Literary Portraits (London: Peter Nevill, 1949);

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  13. Patrick Anthony Lawlor, The Loneliness of Katherine Mansfield (Wellington, NZ: Beltane Book Bureau, 1950);

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  14. Roland Merlin, Le Drame secret de Katherine Mansfield (Paris: Seuil, 1950);

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  15. Sylvia Berkman, Katherine Mansfield: A Critical Study (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1951).

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  16. For a discussion of these texts see Gerri Kimber, Katherine Mansfield: The View from France (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008);

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  17. Lydia Wevers, ‘This World’s Imagining: The Biographies of Katherine Mansfield’, in Commonwealth: Essays and Studies, SP 4 (1997), pp. 27–38;

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  18. Liselotte Glage, ‘Biographies and No End: Katherine Mansfield’s Criticism in Search of its Subject’, in Michel Paulette and Michel Dupuis, eds, The Fine Instrument: Essays on Katherine Mansfield (Sydney: Dangaroo Press,1989), pp. 28–48.

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  19. Sydney Janet Kaplan, Katherine Mansfield and the Origins of Modernist Fiction (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 169–87.

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  20. Jan Pilditch, ed., The Critical Response to Katherine Mansfield (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996), p. xxvi.

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  21. In her study of the reception of Mansfield and Woolf in Italian literary journals in the interwar period, Elisa Bolchi discusses four essays on Mansfield, but she claims that around twenty were published. Elisa Bolchi, ‘Il piano dell’anima: Virginia Woolf e Katherine Mansfield nelle riviste italiane tra le due guerre’, in Arturo Cattaneo, ed., Chi stramalediva gli inglesi: la diffu-sione della letteratura inglese e americana in Italia tra le due guerre (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2007), p. 65.

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  22. On 14 April 1922. Emilio Cecchi, I tarli, ed. by Silvia Betocchi, intro Enzo Siciliano (Roma: Fazi, 1999), p. 51. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the Italian are mine.

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  23. John Middleton Murry, ‘The Future of English Fiction’, in the Nation and the Athenaeum, 1 April 1922, pp. 24–25.

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  24. The text ends with a reference to the commemorative writing that appeared in the Nation and the Athenaeum on 20 January 1923. A few years later Mansfield was also mentioned in the review the Italian poet Eugenio Montale devoted to the French translation of James Joyce’s Dubliners in La Fiera Letteraria. Eugenio Montale, ‘Scrittori europei: “Dubliners” di James Joyce’, in La Fiera Letteraria, II, 38, 19 September 1926, p. 5,

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  25. reprinted in Giorgio Zampa, ed., Eugenio Montale, Il secondo mestiere: Prose 1920–1979, 2 vols (Milano: Mondadori, 1996), Vol. 1, pp. 143–50. Montale repeatedly referred to Mansfield also in essays and letters written around 1950.See Niccolò Scaffai, ‘“Non so inventare nulla.” Appunti per un commento a “Farfalla di Dinard” di Eugenio Montale’, Bollettino ‘900, 1–2, June–December 2007, http://www3.unibo.it/boll900/numeri/2007-i/Scaffai.html (accessed 30 March 2014).

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  26. Sibilla Aleramo, ‘Katherine Mansfield nelle sue lettere’, in L’Italia lettera-ria, 27 December 1931,

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  27. reprinted in Rita Guerricchio, ed., Sibilla Aleramo, Andando e stando, (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1997), pp. 146–50.

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  28. Katherine Mansfield, Félicité, trans. Jacques Delamain, preface Louis Gillet (Paris: Stock, 1928).

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  29. Marina Zancan and Cristiana Pipitone, eds, L’archivio Sibilla Aleramo: guida alla consultazione (Roma: Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, 2006), www.fondazio-negramsci.org.

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  30. Alberto Moravia, ‘Spiritualità di Katherine Mansfield’, in Gazzetta del Popolo, 85–39, 15 February 1932, p. 3.

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  31. Katherine Mansfield, La garden party et autres histoires, trans. Marthe Duproix, pref. Edmond Jaloux (Paris: Stock, 1929).

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  32. Elio Vittorini, ‘Caterina Mansfield’, Pegaso, IV, 11 November 1932, pp. 553–72,

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  33. reprinted in Elio Vittorini, Letteratura, arte e società: articoli e interventi, 1926–37, ed. by Raffaella Rodondi (Torino: Einaudi, 1977), p. 515.

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  34. Elio Vittorini, ‘Tendo al diario intimo’, Solaria, 9–10, 1931, reprinted in Alberto Folin, ed., Solaria, Letteratura, Campo di Marte (Treviso: Canova, 1973), pp. 107–9.

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  35. Ettore Catalano, La forma della coscienza (Bari: Dedalo, 1977), pp. 40–50.

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  36. Elio Vittorini, ‘Caterina Mansfield a Ospedaletti’, San Remo, II, 2, 20 January 1933, pp. 16–18, reprinted in Vittorini, Letteratura, p. 629.

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  37. Aldo Philipson, ‘L’arte di Katherine Mansfield’, Occidente, II, 2, January–March 1933, p. 59.

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  38. Christmas Humphreys, Il buddismo, trans. Aldo Philipson (Rome: Ubaldini, 1964).

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  39. G. M., ‘Caterina Mansfield’, Rivista di letture: Bollettino della federazione Italiana delle biblioteche cattoliche, 3: 9, 15 September 1933, pp. 258–9.

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  40. See Alistair McCleery, ‘“Community of Interests” in English Language Paperback Publishing, 1934–51’, The Library, 7: 3, 2006, pp. 297–316 and http://www.tauchnitzeditions.com/albatross.htm (accessed 30 March 2014).

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  41. Emilio Cecchi, ‘Katherine Mansfield’, in Scrittori inglesi e americani (Lanciano: G. Carabba, 1935), p. 252.

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  42. Katherine Mansfield, La lezione di canto e altri racconti, trans. and intro. Emilio Ceretti (Milano: Mondadori, 1935).

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  43. Salvatore Rosati, La Nuova Antologia, 303, 16 October 1935, pp. 553–7.

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  44. Pietro Bardi, Antologia della letteratura inglese: Da Burns a Mansfield, 2 vols (Bari: Laterza, 1936), vol. 2, pp. 287–8.

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  45. Gilberto Altichieri, ‘Introduzione’, in Katherine Mansfield, Poemetti, trans. and intro. Gilberto Altichieri (Modena: Guanda, 1940), pp. 9–20.

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  46. Vittoria Guerrini, ‘Introduzione’, in Katherine Mansfield, Una tazza di tè e altri racconti, trans. and intro. Vittoria Guerrini (Torino: Frassinelli, 1944), p. xiv.

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  47. Nicoletta Di Ciolla, ‘Elsa Morante, translator of Katherine Mansfield’, in Stefania Lucamente and Sharon Wood, eds, Under Arturo’s Star: The Cultural Legacies of Elsa Morante (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2005), pp. 45–66. For a comparison between Mansfield and Morante, see also Elisa Gambaro, ‘Immagini di spazialità nei racconti di Elsa Morante e Katherine Mansfield: sulle tracce di un’antica ossessione’ (2003): http://www.club.it/culture/culture2003/ elisa.gambaro/corpo.tx.gambaro.html (accessed 30 March 2014). 63.

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  48. Emilio Cecchi, ‘Prefazione’, in Katherine Mansfield, Il meglio di Katherine Mansfield (Milano: Rizzoli, 1945), p. 18.

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  49. See Antony Alpers, The Life of Katherine Mansfield (New York: The Viking Press, 1980), pp. 357–8.

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  50. A selection of stories appeared as Katherine Mansfield, Matrimonio moderno: racconti di Katherine Mansfield, trans. Mirella Ducceschi (Milano-Roma: Jandi Sapi, 1946).

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  51. The Journal was also reprinted: Katherine Mansfield, Diario, trans. Mara Fabietti (Milano: Dall’Oglio, 1949)

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  52. and Mansfield was included in an anthology of poetry: Gilda Musa, Incontri con T. S. Eliot, K. Mansfield, R. Bridges, R. Kipling, T. Hardy, W. Blunt, G. Hopkins, F. Thompson, M. Arnold, S. Coleridge, H. Longfellow: liriche scelte con un’appendice di poesie tratte da lirici greci (Milano: Academia, 1950).

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  53. Antonin Dalmace Serillanges, Recueillement: dix minutes de culture spirituelle par jour (Paris: Ferdinand Aubier — Éditions Montaigne, 1935).

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  54. Antonin Dalmace Sertillanges, Meditazioni: dieci minuti di cultura spirituale ogni giorno, trans. Laura Bianchini (Brescia: Morcelliana, 1950), p. 85.

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  55. Diotima (Antonia Della Pergola), Tre prigionieri: Antonio Gramsci, Katherine Mansfield, Santa Teresa del Bambino Gesu (Roma: Figlie della Chiesa, 1952), p. 16.

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Authors
  1. Maurizio Ascari
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Catholic university in Ružomberok, Slovakia

    Janka Kascakova

  2. University of Northampton, UK

    Gerri Kimber

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© 2015 Maurizio Ascari

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Ascari, M. (2015). An ‘utterly concrete and yet impalpable’ Art: The Early Reception of Katherine Mansfield in Italy (1922–1952). In: Kascakova, J., Kimber, G. (eds) Katherine Mansfield and Continental Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137429971_2

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