About one of the most disputed literary cases of the Seventies : Elsa Morante's La Storia

Abstract

Analysed together with Morante's few but eloquent open letters, La Storia reveals the author's vehement defence of the value of literature. Deliberately not participating in events exceeding the scope of "art", Morante made her voice heard to uphold the freedom of speech, yet was consistently reticent on political and ideological issues. Therefore La Storia acts upon literature itself, plays with the genre's structural and ideological conventions and celebrates art as the only human action. It takes a poet, not a political activist, to speak up for all. Poetry alone has a revolutionary charge, a potential to increase the readers' vitality and hope for future common awakening.