Recensioni tus as novel or novella or autobiography. The themes of silence and solitude appear again, as does the new theme of love. Grimaldi Morosoff shows how Aleramo becomes increasingly preoccupied with describing the potential of love because life-power manifests itself through love. It is especially in this novel that Aleramo is able to transcend the past events of her life, rendering them artistically, and reinterpreting her experiences in their universality. From // passaggio emerges

more »

... "new-woman-poet" (p.6l) whose intention is to change the myth of woman that man has created. Yet this myth is curiously re-appropriated in Amo, dunque sono, a series of never read letters written to her lover while he, at a faraway retreat, prepares his body and soul for more spiritual endeavours, denying her any contact or communication and demanding fidelity to their unconsummated relationship. Grimaldi Morosoff sees in this also a transfiguration: "Sibilla, who is not a saint, but a poet, strives to change what causes her the greatest suffering.... She recognizes herself incomplete... Woman was not created for man; they were created for each other." (p. 78-79). But while man considers himself from Cartesian rationalism (I think, therefore I am),woman must be completed by love (amo, dunque sono). Grimaldi Morosoff calls this attitude subversive and iconoclastic, explicating how it has added to the myth of the angelic woman and demonic woman and pointing out how, through language that may be both highly lyrical and metaphorical or more plain and concrete, Aleramo seeks to dismantle that myth. But the example of Sibilla's head does not convince, although the point itself is of fundamental importance in Aleramo's works. Finally, there is a perspicacious and well researched examination of Aleramo's only third-person narrative, II frustino. The study of Aleramo, in her transfiguration to woman-lover-artist is thought provoking particularly in its presentation of the metaphor of paper roses; of greater critical value is the evidence of how this novel presents Aleramo in her stance as a new Prometheus. Transfigurations by Grimaldi Morosoff curiously does not acknowledge the important contributions of Lucienne Kroha (1992) to Aleramo studies. Nevertheless, like the latter, this too is a most welcome addition not only for Aleramo scholars but to all those who are re-evaluating the works of women writers of early 20th century Italy.