ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book deals with a central image in Dante and Elsa Morante's meditation on corporeality and language: that of the infant suckling at the mother's breast. It begins with the claim that Aracoeli, set against a background of massive political dis appointment, is defined by a sense of directionlessness and despair. The book also deals with the many tensions in Morante's novel, claiming in particular that in Manuele Gragnolati's ambivalent actions, sentiments, and fantasies there is also a considerable consistency that points to a different kind of logic beyond binary oppositions and the principle of non-contradiction. It proposes an interpretation of Morante's novel which prevents the reader from losing him/herself in the labyrinth of the text's meanings on the one hand and from bypassing the complexity of this baroque writing on the other.
