Sexuality, adultery, and hysteria in Gabriele D'Annunzio's nineteenth century novelistic female characters: From adulteresses and hysterics to the new nationalist women

D’Annunzio’s nineteenth-century female representations rarely adhere to the tenets of traditional stereotypes, instead carrying deeper connotations. This work examines these female protagonists as a response to the crisis of the traditional female roles of mothers and wives, paving the way for the ascent of female emancipation and nationalist movements in Italy. This study contributes to a better understanding of the complex relationship between D’Annunzio’s
fin-de-siècle novels and their socio-historical context, through their female heroines. In doing so, female sexuality, adultery and hysteria are analysed as tools to reposition and re-evaluate female roles in both the private and public spheres. This process reaches its climax in the protagonist of ll Fuoco, the last novel examined, where female agency and sexuality are no longer signs of the evil castrator, but rather key aspects of the new nationalist woman, with the female character becoming a co-artifex in the re-foundation of Italy’s glory.