File:1986 Schneider.jpg

{en} Marilyn Schneider. Vengeance of the victim: history and symbol in Giorgio Bassani's fiction. Minnesota Publications in the Humanities, 5. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.

Abstract

A textual analysis of Bassani's "Romanzo di Ferrara" (1974), a collection of his works on the Jewish experience in Ferrara. Examines historical, topographical, allegorical, and sexual elements of the book, illustrating the situation of Italian Jews under fascism and Nazism. Emphasizes the importance of the themes of the racial laws of 1938, the ostracism and persecution of Italian Jews, and death in the concentration camps. Bassani also recalls flashes of Jewish history from Renaissance Ferrara and the Risorgimento period. Explores the history of Ferrara and its ghetto, as well as sexual relations among the characters as metaphors for Aryan-Jewish political relations and Jewish self-humiliation. Analyzes Bassani's persona and the influence of his own experience of persecution on his writing.