ABSTRACT
The fantastic, like the gothic, allows women to express their relation to the maternal body, but it also allows them to articulate spaces beyond the labyrinth of that body, namely in the 'poli dell'orrore e della fascinazione'. The fantastic gives Italian women writers the ideal means with which to foreground their ex-centric relationship with the canon, in a language that conveys spatial anxiety and exploration. The relationship between the marginalisation of women and the lack of a female fantastic tradition is not self-evident however; in other cultures the realm of the fantastic was often considered a female territory, the place where women begin to write. If, as a process of interpretation that is blocked, the fantastic is often described as occupying a liminal position, the theme of crossing-over becomes vital to the desire of the narrator and reader. The microcosmic nature of the fantastic makes it an effective means for women to reveal the dissonance between fiction and reality.
