The Paradoxes of "Alibi"

Abstract

Why in the Sixties did Elsa Morante define herself «poet as a profession» instead of «professional poet»? We must to rethink the whole «Morante case», choosing the poetry, in both her functions, as aim of reflection and as literary activity desultorily practiced by the author, as the way to reach the sense of Morante’s work. This is the aim of this article, which discusses the poetries placed in the novels, also as epigraphs, quotes or intervertions by authorial voice, together with Albi (1958) and the sub-text in the Quaderno di Narciso. The article examines the dis-connections and the connections between the existential meaning of alibi in relation with the poetic activity on the one hand and the theory entailed by the novelist ,when he/she uses the first narrative person as alibi for putting in a far away from his/herself the autobiographical responsibility, on the other hand.