IT315 Experiments in Narrative: Telling the Past

From the Risorgimento to the present, the Italian novel has frequently adopted the family as a privileged narrative framework through which to explore historical, social and psychological tensions. Extended across generations, the family lends itself particularly well to historical investigation, enabling the narration of conflict, trauma and desire in transgenerational terms, and fostering a sustained dialogue between past and present.

In recent decades, psychoanalytic theory has significantly rethought the notion of the family romance. From the work of Nicolas Abraham and Mária Török to that of Anne Ancelin Schützenberger, Freud’s original concept has been re-examined as far more 'romanesque' than Freud himself envisaged: genealogical trees populated by ghosts, repetitions, echoes, secrets and illegitimate transmissions, in which the past persistently returns to unsettle the present.

This module examines a selection of Italian family novels in the light of these critical perspectives. Primary texts will include (but will not be limited to) Ippolito Nievo’s Le confessioni d’un italiano, Giovanni Verga’s I Malavoglia, Federico De Roberto’s I Viceré, Italo Svevo’s La coscienza di Zeno, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo, Elsa Morante’s La Storia, Natalia Ginzburg’s Lessico famigliare, Giorgio Bassani’s Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini, Elena Ferrante’s L’amica geniale, and Claudia Durastanti’s La straniera.

The module offers a hauntological journey through modern Italian history and an interdisciplinary exploration at the intersection of literature, genealogy, psychoanalysis and trauma theory. It is open to all students, whether or not they have prior knowledge of Italian.

Assessment