From myth to Borgata: Rome in postwar Italian narrative

This study examines the Roman borgate's (peripheral slums') urbanistic and social transformations in Italian literature and cinema that emerged during the postwar period. I begin my analysis with works produced at the close of World War II and conclude with those signaling the inauguration of Italy's Economic Boom. This work does not attempt to chart Rome, although occasional maps illustrate the modern capital city's irregular, "oil stain" expansion. Nor does this study attempt to integrate an overarching theoretical explanation for the city's shape and for the issues afflicting it while it transformed into the administrative seat of a dictatorship in that of a democratic government. From Myth to Borgata, rather, uses a variety of modern European philosophies to address the socio-political and economic circumstances that affected individual artistic representations of Rome in post-World War II Italian narratives. I couch these philosophies in twentieth century cultural movements, including modernism and mythification/demythification so as to provide a cohesive structure to the work.;It is highly debatable whether or not Rome is a modern/-ist city on par with other European capitals such as London, Paris, or Berlin; however this analysis explores examples of modernist architectural styles and urban conditions that arose and propagated from the end of the 1940s through the 1950s, as a means to demonstrate the physical presence of modernism amidst and beyond Rome's more famous ancient and Christian monuments. This investigation furthermore takes into consideration modernizing urbanism, including the introduction of increasingly expeditious means of transportation, public works, and conurbation, which all arguably emerged from European modernism's ethics of progress and evolution. From Myth to Borgata contemporaneously reveals the Italian cultural opposition to Fascism following Benito Mussolini's ejection from power. In particular, it shows how authors' and cinematographers' rejected and debased Il Duce's mythicized notion of romanita (Roman-ness) in their portrayals as well as juxtapositions of the capital's semiotically charged monuments and ahistorical periphery.