Ortese and the theory of difference in Il porto di Toledo

abstract

Anna Maria Ortese is considered today as one of the greatest women writers of all times. This essay analyzes her contribution to Italian Women’s Literature within the context of her relationship with two major waves of the Italian Feminist Movement: that of the 1970s, centered mainly on the idea of equality, and that of the 1980s, centered on the idea of sexual difference. While writing her  autobiography Il porto di Toledo Ortese became aware that the very experience of reality, centered on sexual difference, had to be reassessed and, consequently a new feminine language had to to be conceived. The contributions made by Ortese in Toledo proved to be invaluable in the creation of a new feminine language, distant from the Lacanian symbolic order and capable to express the experience of reality in a new and unique way.