1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910484305303321

Autore

Bartolini Guido <1988->

Titolo

The Italian literature of the Axis War : memories of self-absolution and the quest for responsibility / / Guido Bartolini

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2021

ISBN

3-030-63181-8

Edizione

[1st ed. 2021.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (271 pages)

Collana

Italian and Italian American Studies, , 2635-294X

Disciplina

850.90091

850.935840541345

Soggetti

Italian literature - 20th century - History and criticism

Collective memory and literature - Italy

War and literature

World War, 1939-1945 - Italy

World War, 1939-1945 - Literature and the war

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction -- 2. Memory: Theory, History, and Media -- 3. Topoi of Innocence -- 4. Themes of a Lost War -- 5. Masterplots of Sacrifice and Conversion -- 6. The Quest for Responsibility -- 7. Conclusion.

Sommario/riassunto

“An innovative investigation of an understudied aspect of the post-war period, The Italian Literature!of the Axis War devotes renewed critical attention to texts and authors consistently and often deliberately occluded in previous literary histories. This work sheds new light on Italy’s efforts to remember as well as to forget the Second World War.” —Charles L. Leavitt IV, University of Notre Dame, USA “Through rigorous and original research, using refined notions of literary criticism, Guido Bartolini impeccably examines how Italian literature contributed to moulding the collective memory of the Axis War. This is essential reading for understanding how Italy evaded guilt for the war of aggression fought at the side of Nazi Germany and constructed a self-absolving memory centred on the stereotype of the ‘good Italian.’” —Filippo Focardi, University of Padua, Italy This book investigates the representation of the Axis War – the wars of aggression that Fascist



Italy fought in North Africa, Greece, the Soviet Union, and the Balkans, from 1940 to 1943 – in three decades of Italian literature. Building on an innovative and interdisciplinary methodology, which combines memory studies, historiography, thematic criticism, and narratology, this book explores the main topoi, themes, and masterplots of an extensive corpus of novels and memoirs to assess the contribution of literature to the reshaping of Italian memory and identity after the end of Fascism. By exploring the influence that public memory exercises on literary depictions and, in return, the contribution of literary texts to the formation and dissemination of a discourse about the past, the book examines to what extent Italian literature helped readers form an ethical awareness of the crimes committed by members of their national community during World War II. Guido Bartolini is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College Cork, Ireland, where he works on the cultural memory of fascism and its representation in Italian literature and cinema.