The «responsabilità della donna intellettuale» between cultural engagement and literature. Aleramo, Banti, Bellonci, de Céspedes and Masino, female writers in «Mercurio»

Abstract

The aim of this article is to highlight the cultural role that journalistic writing played in the composition of Italian women writers’ novels. The writing of Alba de Céspedes, Sibilla Aleramo, Paola Masino and Maria Bellonci elaborate, between the 1940s and the 1960s, the social context of Italian second post-war period. The historical urge of a cultural reenactment generated, within these female writers, what Anna Banti outlined in 1953 as the burden of intellectual women. To this regard, emblematic is the case of «Mercurio» for its dialogic structure between literature and journalism, which dialogism creates a correlation amongst the cultural substratum of the authors and their writing. A comparative analysis is pursued between some writings published on «Mercurio» and their literary component, in which echoes the hint of a history narrated by women.