Writing an essay on Elsa Morante, one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. Ideas and suggestions for writing an excellent essay.
Essay on Elsa Morante
Elsa Morante is one of the most famous and appreciated Italian writers of the twentieth century. Famous mainly for having written and published in 1974 La storia , she was also an essayist, a translator and a poet.
If your Italian teacher assigned you an essay on this important writer at school and you don’t know where to start, here are some useful ideas and suggestions for your essay.
Theme on Elsa Morante: development
Elsa Morante is one of the most important and well-known writers of the second half of the twentieth century . A brilliant and creative author, endowed with authentic stylistic and expressive delicacy, she composed many literary works and some novels during her life. Her literary career began very early, in fact, from a young age she began to compose writings, nursery rhymes and stories for children.
In 1936 Elsa Morante met Alberto Moravia, her future husband, and with him she frequented numerous Italian writers and intellectuals of the time, including Saba and Pasolini .
The first two novels
Among Elsa Morante’s most famous works is Menzogna e sortilegio , the author’s first novel which was published in 1948. In this work, Elsa Morante represents and analyses the decline and worsening of the status of a wealthy family living in southern Italy through a fantastic description.
In 1957 Elsa Morante’s second novel, L’isola di Arturo , was published, in which the author narrates and represents the feelings of aversion, hostility and at the same time passion that belong to a young boy towards his young stepmother.
The third novel: The story
But the most famous novel by the writer is La storia , published in 1974, in which the huge disaster caused by the Second World War is narrated and remembered through the events of humble and common characters, such as the main protagonists of the story: a humble teacher named Ida with her two sons, Nino and Giuseppe, called Useppe. La storia can be considered a novel with a historical background, able to provide very detailed information on the Second World War and the immediate post-war period. In fact, the novel contains short summaries of the main historical events of those years.
The last novel and the posthumous work
Later, Elsa Morante published her last novel, Aracoeli . In this book, the writer narrates the story of an aristocratic and wealthy character who is constantly searching for his origins and his own individual personality, which he tries in every way to regain through the memory of his dear deceased mother.
The work entitled Diario 1938 , on the other hand, was published posthumously, that is, after the writer’s death. Here Elsa Morante delicately and sensitively recounts the events, the affairs, the deepest desires and the deceptions of her youth and adolescence. This text is able to show hidden aspects of the writer’s character.
