Elena Ferrante and Elsa Morante’s thought and writing about literature

Abstract

This study highlights the dialogue that Elena Ferrante’s writing establishes with that of Elsa Morante, whether in novels or essays. For this, it proposes a comparative analysis that identifies common literary values and thoughts expressed in their essayistic texts and how they appear in his novels. It focuses on the analysis of metaliterary discussion, which prevails in the essays, and on the self-reflexivity that is evident in the tetralogy novels The brilliant friend, by Ferrante, and House of liars, by Morante. As the main corpus of this analysis, among the works of Morante, the essays “On the novel” and “Pro o contro la bomba atomica” were chosen, gathered in the book Pro o contro la bomba atomica, and the novels House of liars and The History; and, by Ferrante, Frantumaglia’s essays and the napolitan serie The brilliant friend.