Daria Valentini and Paola Caru, eds. Beyond Artemisia: Female Subjectivity, History, and Culture in Anna Banti.(Book Review)

Daria Valentini and Paola Caru, eds. Beyond Artemisia: Female Subjectivity, History, and Culture in Anna Banti. Chapel Hill, NC: Annali d'Italianisrica, 2003.

Comprised of an introduction, four sections and concluding remarks, this volume of essays provides a multifaceted inquiry into Anna Banti's oeuvre. As the title suggests, the collection aims to dispel "the notion that Banti's success can be measured by the popularity of Artemisia alone" (1). The contributors employ a variety of critical approaches and points of view to investigate the fundamental issue of female identity and subjectivity in Banti's narrative. They also examine the treatment of history and autobiography, Banti's rapport with feminism and her role as a cultural figure.

The construction of female identity and subjectivity are the focus of the first set of essays. Based on Banti's collections of short stories, Il coraggio delle donne (1940) and Le donne muoiono (1951), Ursula J. Fanning identifies three categories of female subjects: the ordinary woman caught in her traditional role of wife and/or mother; the exceptional, creative heroine; and a third category of women who lack a real vocation and as such bear the brunt of Banti's disdain and contempt. Whatever the path they have chosen, these female characters "represent a sense of fracture and division within the self" (25), and share a destiny of marginalization, estrangement and solitude. Banti's stance toward the female dilettante and the exceptional woman is further investigated by Tommasina Gabriele in her study of Il bastardo (1953) through the characters of donna Elisa and Cecilia. Issues of legitimacy and illegitimacy, as well as that of transgression against societal norms by way of mask and disguise, are explored to expose the reality behind public opinion and social respectability and to debunk the myth of the nuclear family. In the last essay, Daria Valentini underscores the relational aspect of female identity through bonding and friendship and looks into its impact on the construct of female identity: "It is only in relation to other women that Banti's main characters ultimately shape their identity, confronting the challenge of forming multiple bonds while maintaining a degree of separation" (50). However, significant relationships are difficult to establish because, in Banti, friendship "assumes mythical qualifies pertaining to a utopian world more than everyday life" (59).

The two essays in the second section are devoted to Banti's treatment of history. Cristina della Coletta focuses on the fictionalized political memoir Noi credevamo (1967), arguing that Banti redefined the genres of biography and historical fiction. By proposing a new form of selfhood which subverts acquired notions of subjectivity as a monolithic, unified entity, and by refuting the official Risorgimento historiography that favored a homogeneous and idealized narrative of the creation of the Italian State, the protagonist creates in his memoir "a view that not only alters the historical record, but problematizes what ultimately constitutes subjectivity as well as historical knowledge" (69). Historical narrative considered from a deconstructionist perspective is the focus of Sharon Wood's essay. Looking specifically at La camicia bruciata (1973), Banti's fictional biography of Marguerite d'Orleans, Wood remarks that Banti's goal was not the rehabilitation of Marguerite's reputation, ...