Le Simplegadi

Il saggio analizza alcuni temi cari a Veronica Brady, presenti nella sua profonda analisi critica della letteratura australiana. Veronica ha spesso letto l’opera di Patrick White alla luce di una ricerca spirituale e di una visione mitico-mistica. Obiettivo di questo saggio è studiare come la figura della zia in The Aunt’s Story (1948) incarni unodei personaggi isolati e visionari di White che si fanno portavoce di un messaggio incomprensibile per la societàcontemporanea, incapace di vedere oltre la realtà ordinaria. Intendo dimostrare come il suo ruolo di esploratricenella terra interiore del Sé connetta Theodora Goodman agli antichi archetipi di partnership (Eisler 1987) e della Dea, in particolare della vecchia saggia (Crone), che incarna una “woman of age, wisdom and power” (Bolen2001). Questa figura aveva un ruolo importantissimo, ora dimenticato, nelle antiche società gilaniche (Eisler 1987). Theadora, il dono della Dea, come dovrebbe suonare il nome della protagonista, rimanda in termini chiari alla funzione spirituale e sacra delle antiche donne-sacerdotesse. Theodora è in realtà Theadora, una sacerdotessaamata dalla Dea, ma la società contemporanea, incapace di vedere oltre la realtà ordinaria, può solo catalogare queste figure sacre come ‘pazze’.

DOI: 10.17456/SIMPLE-41

Bibliografia

A Conversation with Patrick White. 1973. Australian Writers in Profile. Southerly, 3: 132-143.

Ashcroft, Bill. 2014. Horizons of Hope. Vanden Driesen Cynthia & Bill Ashcroft eds. Patrick White Centenary. The Legacy of a Prodigal Son. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 22-42.

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Bolen, Jean Shinoda. 2001. Goddesses in Older Women. Archetypes in Women over Fifty. New York: HarperCollins.

Brady, Veronica. 1978. The Novelist and the Reign of Necessity: Patrick White and Simone Weil. Patrick White. A Critical Symposium. R. Shepherd & K. Singh eds. Adelaide: Centre for Research in New Literatures in English, 108-116.

Brady, Veronica, 1981. A Crucible of Prophets, Australians and the Question of God. Sydney: Australian and NewZealand Studies in Theology and Religion [chapter 4, Patrick White and the Difficult God, 69-89].

Brady, Veronica. 1992. To Be Or Not To Be? The Verbal History of Patrick White. Westerly, 2 (winter): 23-34.

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Eisler, Riane. 1987. The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

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WEBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Goodman (consulted on 26 April 2016).

http://www.rianeeisler.com/ (consulted on 26 April 2016).

http://all.uniud.it/?page_id=195 (consulted on 26 April 2016).

www.forumeditrice.it/percorsi/lingua-e-letteratura/all/ (consulted on 26 April 2016).

http://www.hanksville.org/storytellers/henson/ (consulted on 26 April 2016).