Paola Masino: From classic to modern fantastic

Abstract

Recent studies aimed at rediscovering and redefining Italian fantastico novecentesco have unjustly ignored the work of Paola Masino. In this article, I demonstrate how Masino draws upon the tropes of fantastic literature in two of her novels to investigate female selfhood and the conflict with imposed definitions of womanhood. Masino’s treatment of the topic, however, changes radically in the few years (1931–1938) which separate the two works. From a more traditional fantastic in her first novel Monte Ignoso – rich in conventional fantastic topoi such as ghosts, animated paintings, and dramatic deaths – Masino switches to a more ironic and psychological fantastic in her last work Nascita e morte della massaia. The difference not only marks a shift in personal style but is also a testament to the transition between the 19th century Romantic fantastic and the ‘modern’ 20th-century fantastic or fantastico novecentesco that will mostly develop in the post-war decades.