Elsa Morante’s Aracoeli: A portrait of the mind as embodied

Abstract

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. KeywordsAracoeli, cognitive literary criticism, Elsa Morante, embodied mind, unreliability, memory Tale, o poco diversa, mi si presenta, coi suoi dintorni, la casa di Totetaco, se qui ne tento una ricostruzione logica. Ma si tratta, invero, di una ricostruzione forzosa, ossia fabbricata dalla mia ragione «reale», senza nessun aiuto della mia memoria. Se getto uno scandaglio nella mia memoria, fino a toccarne l'ultimo fondo, ne riporto alla luce un tutt'altro Totetaco: tanto veritiero e lampante che tuttora, mentre ne parlo, io rimango incerto e diviso tra i due. E denuncio così (non per la prima volta) la mia natura scissa, che spesso invalida la mia testimonianza perfino al giudizio mio proprio.Quale, dei due, fu il vero Totetaco? [Morante, 1982: 113] In 1982, Elsa Morante published her last novel, Aracoeli. On its back cover, the novel is usually described as the story of Manuele, a 43-year-old lonely, self-loathing homosexual and recovering drug-addict who has a problematic relationship with his long-deceased mother, Aracoeli. Without dismissing other possible readings, the cognitive approach brings to the forefront the presence of the mind in the novel and prompts us to explore its interplay with corporeality, which has often been stressed by extant critical literature. 2 Morante, indeed, not only stresses the centrality of the narrator's mind, but also emphasises its embodied nature. Processes normally regarded as purely mental -such as the elaboration of emotions, understanding and memory -are actually deeply affected by the