The performative power of narrative in Goliarda Sapienza’s Lettera aperta, L’arte della gioia and Io, Jean Gabin

Journal article

This article investigates Goliarda Sapienza’s distinctive use of narrative as ‘performative’, focusing on narrative voice and structures in three works: Lettera aperta, L’arte della gioia and Io, Jean Gabin. Overall, my analysis postulates an evolution from a performative and deeply unstable narrating ‘I’ to a reinforced narrating voice and identity, that of an anarchist artist. In the analysis of narrative voice and structures, I refer to Adriana Cavarero’s notions of voice and narration and Jean-Claude Coquet’s reflections on body and language; I also employ Mark Turner’s concept of ‘blended space’ and Peter Brooks’s insights on plot and teleology. Sapienza’s narrative incorporates the main instances of modernity and postmodernity in a highly disrupted and open narrative, but goes beyond it as it gives voice to a strong aspiration of freedom and a notion of performative identity still able produce agency and emancipation, which constitutes this author’s significant originality.

Authors: Bazzoni, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Routledge
• Journal: Italian Studies
• Volume: 72
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 72-88
• Publication date: 2017-02-15
• Acceptance date: 2016-11-16
• DOI: 10.1080/00751634.2017.1287256
• EISSN: 1748-6181
• ISSN: 0075-1634
• Keywords: auto-fiction; identity; performative narrative; Goliarda Sapienza; agency; voice