ABSTRACT
To retrace the entire literary production of Elsa Morante, beginning with the earliest youthful trials, allows us to grasp the central thread that unites fables, stories, essays, and novels through Aracoeli, which reinvents the literary genre of the Bildungs roman. If Aracoeli reveals with a smile (who knows whether tender or mocking) to her adult, precociously aged son — arrived as he has at the terminus of the research and the voyage that have brought him finally to the empty point of origin. When Manuele finally comes to know himself, he pitilessly accuses Aracoeli of having hidden the truth from him (an echo of the reproaches made by the young suicide of Addio to the lover-mother-girl for having fooled him with dreams and wonders). Manuele is also 'divided' and capable of speaking with many voices to himself. He is obsessed with memories and dreams, with feelings of guilt and the yearning for purity.
