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Notes
Anna Maria Ortese, Corpo Celeste (Milan: Adelphi, 1997), p. 72. From now on, this book will be indicated as CC.
For the titles of the three novels whose plots are briefly given here, see, footnote 8.
According to a critic (Monica Farnetti, Anna Maria Ortese (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 1998), pp. 79–89), Ortese’s writing compares to the sea, a central presence in her pages and in her life (she was born in Rome; but lived in Libya as a child; passionately loved Naples — which frames what has been called Ortese’s toledian phase — a love ended with an unsettling quarrel; found finally a settlement in Rapallo, when she was getting on in years). As the sea moves continuously, but its movement is in some way eternal, and its changing is unchanging, so one could say that the passage of certain values from one concept to another, from one metaphor to another does not prevent seeing returning attitudes in Ortese’s work.
See Pietro Citati, “La principessa dell’isola”, in the Adelphi edition of L’Iguana, 1986, p. 199–200.
See Dario Bellezza, the lucid “Fra incanto e furore”, in the Rizzoli edition of the same novel, 1978, p. vi.
An idea shared by A. Giuliani, “Anna Maria Ortese scrittrice in esilio”, in La Repubblica, 11/3/1998.
For reference, see note 1.
L’iguana (1st ed. 1965), Il cardillo addolorato (1st ed. 1993), Alonso e i visionari (1st ed. 1996).
CC, p. 64.
A. M. Ortese, “Circo equestre”, in Il mio paese è la notte (Rome: Empiria, 1996), pp. 157–162.
Ortese uses this expression talking about some sad cities where she lived in solitude, cities “without reason or reasons to exist, apart from one: mere existence”. CC, p. 95.
CC, p. 20.
CC, p. 52.
A. M. Ortese, “Circo equestre”, op. cit.
CC, p. 124.
CC, p. 151.
Francesca Borrelli, “Con malinconia e fantasia”, in Il Manifesto, 15/5/1993.
CC, p. 47.
A. M. Ortese, “Attraversando un paese sconosciuto”, in CC.
CC, p. 98.
CC, p. 32.
CC, pp. 39–40.
CC, pp. 98–99.
CC, p. 20.
CC, pp. 99–100.
CC, p. 72.
CC, p. 66.
CC, p. 97.
A. M. Ortese, “Circo equestre”, op. cit.
CC, p. 10.
CC, p. 158.
CC, pp. 44–45.
CC, pp. 98–99.
CC, p. 100.
CC, pp. 103–104.
CC, pp. 102–103.
CC, p. 52.
CC, p. 101.
CC, pp. 102–103.
CC, pp. 102–103.
CC, pp. 108–109. See also CC, p. 123.
CC, p. 124.
CC, pp. 107–108.
CC, p. 20.
CC, p. 52.
CC, p. 113.
CC, p. 115.
CC, pp. 102–103.
CC, p. 89.
CC, p. 20.
CC, p. 21.
CC, p. 123.
CC, p. 24.
On the topic of life as an exam — not a gift, not a prize but not even a punishment — but a school and an exam, Ortese returns often: among others, CC, p. 46, and, most of all, CC, p. 148.
CC, p. 110.
A. M. Ortese, L’iguana (Milan: Rizzoli, 1978), p. 28.
A. M. Ortese, Alonso e i visionari (Milan: Adelphi, 1996), p. 158.
“Pretendo, a questo punto, di essere abbandonato da tutti, indicato come complice massimo nella disgrazia del mondo (che è la persecuzione e morte del Cucciolo), e di pagare per la mia inerzia e feroce silenzio, pagare qui a Genova fino in fondo. Oppure, se Vi piacerà, negli States. Ma che io paghi, Signore, che io sia destituito di ogni valore e privato di ogni stima.” Ibid., p. 211. “I claim to be abandoned by everyone, pointed at as the greatest accomplice in the disgrace of the world (namely the persecution and the death of the Puppet), and to pay for my inertia and my fierce silence, pay here in Genova, till the very end. Or, if you will like it better, in the States. But I should pay, Lord, I should be destituted of every value and deprived of every consideration”.
“Per Ingmar [Neville] non c’era, tuttavia, più nulla da sapere. Egli si sentiva entrato in una terra di mostri, dove le azioni più rivoltanti erano considerate ottime o forse intese a una logica cristiana, solo se avessero affermato un principio utile all’interessato. Capì alla fine che la sua vita era mutata, che il mondo era questo — e nessuno può illudersi di cambiarne, con rivoluzioni e tribunali, l’immobilità fondamentale, né procedere alla sua comprensione senza prima averne visitato le città sotterranee, le tristi città del cuore, il vero sottosuolo di tutti i grandi rivolgimenti e poi impietramenti politici. Lì era il male: nel cuore pronto alla menzogna, e inconsapevole della propria ignominia. E cominciò a vedere nella dura e fredda Elmina, fredda di cuore ma anche di parola, nella sua miseria e ignoranza fondamentale, nel suo No sempiterno a tutti i programmi della Joie, qualcosa di giusto: ma non perciò le perdonava. Si sentiva morire, pensando alla donna amata, e insieme sperava... non sappiamo precisamente in che.” A. M. Ortese, Il cardillo addolorato (Milan: Adelphi, 1993), p. 331. “For Ingmar there was, however, nothing else to know. He felt as if he ahd entered in a land of monsters, where the most revolting actions were considered very good or maybe meant to pursue a Christian logic, if only they had supproted a priciple useful for those concerned. He understood, eventually, that his life had changed, that the world was this — and nobody can delude himself to change, with revolutions and tribunals, its fundamental immobility, nor to begin with its understanding, without having first visited the underground cities, the sad cities of the heart, the true subsoil of all big political upheavals and then blockings. There was evil: in the heart ready for lie, and unaware of its ignominy. And started to see in his hard and cold Elmina, cold in her heart and also in her word, iin her misery and fundamental ignorance, in her eternal “no” to all the programs of the Joie, something right: but this was not enough to forgive her. He felt like dying thinking to his beloved, and at the same time he hoped... we do not know precisely what.”
A. M. Ortese, Alonso e i visionari (Milan: Adelphi, 1996).
CC, p. 118.
CC, p. 124.
CC, p. 125.
CC, p. 158.
CC, p. 128.
CC, p. 115.
P. Citati, “La principessa dell’isola”, op. cit.
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Trovato, R. (2005). Nature and a Calm Mirror: Anna Maria Ortese’s Ethics. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) The Enigma of Good and Evil; The Moral Sentiment in Literature. Analecta Husserliana, vol 85. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3576-4_11
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