Uploaded January 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In the final Virgilio Lecture, titled “‘Speaking from the maternal womb’ with Elena Ferrante”, Adriana Cavarero examines the theme of maternity in the writings of the contemporary Italian novelist, Elena Ferrante, who places the theme of motherhood at the center of her works. Cavarero explores the connection in Ferrante’s texts between the task of rendering in words the literary truth of the dark side of motherhood and that of recounting the relation between mother and daughter—an exploration, thus, of the literary truth of motherhood.
In the final Virgilio Lecture, titled “‘Speaking from the maternal womb’ with Elena Ferrante”, Adriana Cavarero examines the theme of maternity in the writings of the contemporary Italian novelist, Elena Ferrante, who places the theme of motherhood at the center of her works. Cavarero explores the connection in Ferrante’s texts between the task of rendering in words the literary truth of the dark side of motherhood and that of recounting the relation between mother and daughter—an exploration, thus, of the literary truth of motherhood.
