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Violence and rape in the Italian fin-de-siècle: Gabriele D’Annunzio’s “La Vergine Orsola”

  • Michela Barisonzi

This contribution discusses the representation of rape and violence against women in late 19th century Italian literature. In doing so, I focus on a short story, La Vergine Orsola, initially written by Gabriele D’Annunzio in 1884 as part of a short story collection titled Il Libro delle Vergini, later re-published in 1902 in Le Novelle della Pescara. This contribution looks at how the idea of rape is used in this short story as a narrative escamotage to bring to the attention of the reader the question of female entitlement to sexual desire as part of a social critique that D’Annunzio brings forward in his fin-de-siècle novels and short stories.

  • Keywords:
  • D’Annunzio,
  • Female Representation,
  • Rape,
  • Violence,
+ Show More

Michela Barisonzi

Monash University, Australia

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  • Publication Year: 2022
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  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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  • Publication Year: 2022
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Violence and rape in the Italian fin-de-siècle: Gabriele D’Annunzio’s “La Vergine Orsola”

Authors

Michela Barisonzi

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-597-4.09

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Rewriting and Rereading the XIX and XX-Century Canons

Book Subtitle

Offerings for Annamaria Pagliaro

Editors

Samuele Grassi, Brian Zuccala

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-597-4

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-597-4

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-598-1

Series Title

Biblioteca di Studi di Filologia Moderna

Series E-ISSN

2420-8361

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