This thesis aims to establish the literary terms in which it is possible to identify Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996) and Patrizia Vicinelli (1943-1991) as the first female writers of epic poetry in the Italian language. The Parte prima (Premesse e intenzioni) presents a discussion on the secular exclusion of women from the literary canon, and in particular on the implicit separation between epic and lyric, as originally producers of gender anxiety (Gilbert and Gubar) and genre anxiety (Susan Friedman). With an additional focus on the Italian context (the manifesto "Fragili Guerriere"), it explores the socio-literary reasons for many contemporary female poets, writing and performing in Italian language, claim access to epic genre and consider Amelia Rosselli and Patrizia Vicinelli as magistrae in the deconstruction of the male epic tradition and reconstitution of the genre. They consciously and deliberately force the genre, as a literary and political act, in order for it to serve their perspectives as women. The Parte Seconda is a close-reading of the authors' poemetti: La Libellula (1969) and Impromptu (1981) by Rosselli, Non sempre ricordano (1985) and I fondamenti dell'essere (1994) by Vicinelli. Despite the apparent distance between these authors, the intertextual analysis identifies in the renegotiation of the female subject as heroic and the authoriality of women poets the most radical closeness between their poetics. Through the gender and genre critical lens constructed in the Parte Prima and its application for a close reading of primary sources in the Parte Seconda, this thesis argues that Rosselli and Vicinelli produce foundational texts in which women's subjects auto-genesis is explored and established through a distinctively epic voice.