From Galileo to Aldo Moro

• Main Author: Della Valle, Paola
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari 2016-12-01
• Series: English Literature
• Subjects: Patricia Grace. Witi Ihimaera. Allen Curnow. Galileo. Aldo Moro.
• Online Access: http://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/riviste/english-literature/2016/1numero-monografico/from-galileo-to-aldo-moro/

Italian images and symbols are numerous in contemporary New Zealand literature. A basic distinction must however be drawn between Pākehā writers, that is, New Zealanders of European origin, and writers belonging to the indigenous minority: the Māori. Italy has aroused a different emotional response and its imagery has served (or not) a political purpose according to the author’s affiliation to the group of the colonizers or that of the colonised. In this article I will analyse how Italian images are employed by two living Māori writers, Witi Ihimaera and Patricia Grace, and by a Pākehā poet, Allen Curnow, passed away in 2001. In particular, I will focus on whether these images pertain to a common system of values and on the extent to which they are functional to the dominant discourse or constitute a means of subversion of it.