The Woman and the Priest, or the Mother     by Grazia Deledda, Translated by M.G. Steegman Original title: La madre Original language: Italian Published by Dedalus Ltd Pub. Date: December 1987 Format: Paperback Dimensions: 0.50 x 7.00 x 4.50 in. ISBN: 0946626200 List Price: $11.95, £5.99 Buy online from Amazon.co.uk for £5.99 Published by Dedalus, Sawtry Pub. Date: 1987 Pub. Place: UK Format: Paperback, 223 pages List Price: £5.99 Not available for ordering Published by Dedalus, Sawtry Pub. Date: 1987 Pub. Place: UK Format: Paperback, 223 pages Not available for ordering

Structured like a classical tragedy, this is a ‘Portrait in Black’ of the harrowing conflict between love and duty, between an individual and the law. The conflict occurs within the narrow confines of a Sardinian village, but the themes it deals with are common — and fundamental — to all Mediterranean societies, and in particular to Italy.


There are three principle characters: a priest, a woman from the village with whom he falls in love, and his mother, who gives the book its original title. The illicit love affair is experienced with terrible remorse by the priest, who sees it conflicting with his role as the community’s moral guide; his lover Agnese, on the other hand, fervently feels it to be her right. Between them stands the mother who, sitting atop the absolute hegemony furnished by Latin mentality and culture, drives her son to give up Agnese by using her powerful and demanding maternal love. She dies at the very moment of her triumph, returning the lovers to their individual existences beneath the burden of a shameful past.


From a sociological point of view, a particular virtue of this book is its portrayal of oppression: firstly by a religion which aims to dictate all values to each individual, and secondly by a mother’s love, to which even men must defer. In this climate, woman becomes the diabolic and malevolent image of constant temptation, the sick and irredeemable creature that threatens collective stability. D.H. Lawrence writes in his preface to the English edition that Deledda ‘creates the passionate complex of a primitive populace...the interest of the book lies, not in plot or characterisation, but in the presentation of sheer instinctive life.’

‘She raised her face to his, her trembling lips, her lashes wet with tears. And his eyes were dazzled as by the glitter of deep waters, a glitter that blinds and beckons, and the face he gazed into was not the face of any woman on this earth — it was the face of Love itself. And he fell forward into her arms and kissed her upon the mouth.’ p187