THE PREHISTORY OF ELSA MORANTE: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FANTASTIC-GOTHIC IN FIVE TRANSLATED STORIES FROM IL GIOCO SEGRETO

Аннотация

This paper explores the presence of Gothic and fantastic elements in five translated short stories by Elsa Morante from the collection Il gioco segreto, which belong to her early creative period, often referred to in literary criticism as her „prehistory.” Aiming to shed light on the concept of this prehistory and its importance within Morante’s oeuvre, the study combines a biographical-contextual approach with close textual analysis. The analysis is based on Tzvetan Todorov’s theoretical framework for the classification of the fantastic and Sigmund Freud’s concept of the Unheimliche, while also drawing on Morante’s posthumously published Diario 1938, where the author herself reflects on the relationship between dreams, death, and literary creation, offering valuable insights for interpreting her early prose. The paper argues that Morante’s so-called prehistory—long overlooked by critics and the public—plays a crucial role in shaping her poetics. This early period already reveals key thematic and stylistic elements that would later define her work: the centrality of ambiguity, the dominance of inner anxiety in character’s psychology, and the emergence of homodiegetic narration. These findings show that the foundations of Morante’s unique literary voice were laid in the very texts once considered marginal within her oeuvre.