In 1816 a violent literary quarrel engulfed Bourbon Restoration Italy. On one side the Romantics wanted an opening up of Italian culture towards Europe, and on the other the Classicists favoured an inward-looking Italy. Giacomo Leopardi wrote a Discourse of an Italian on Romantic Poetry aiming to contribute to the debate from a new perspective.

In 1816 a violent literary quarrel engulfed Bourbon Restoration Italy. On one side the Romantics wanted an opening up of Italian culture towards Europe, and on the other the Classicists favoured an inward-looking Italy. Giacomo Leopardi wrote a Discourse of an Italian on Romantic Poetry aiming to contribute to the debate from a new perspective.

This groundbreaking study considers Italian Romanticism and the modern myth of Italy. Ranging across European and international borders, he examines the metaphors, facts, and fictions about Italy that were born in the Romantic age and continue to haunt the global literary imagination.

"In 1816 a violent literary quarrel engulfed Bourbon Restoration Italy. On one side the Romantics wanted an opening up of Italian culture towards Europe, and on the other the Classicists favoured an inward-looking Italy, based on its Greco-Roman roots. Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), a young poet and philosopher, wrote a "Discourse of an Italian on Romantic Poetry" in 1818, aiming to contribute to the debate from a new perspective ; it was finally published in 1906." (source : 4e de couv.).

Focusing on the works of Camillo Sbarbaro and Giovanna Bemporad, this book offers the first in-depth analysis of poetic translations of Greek tragedy in 20th-century Italian poetry. The close examination of the linguistic and ideological diversity embedded in these authors' works shows how narratives of Greek tragedy shaped their poetic universe, and how their work influenced the Greek paradigm in return. The reader is presented with a textual analysis of Sbarbaro's and Bemporad's translations, as well as a discussion of larger cultural patterns. This volume provides a fresh perspective on the pedagogical commitment of the Italian poets and their roles as translators of classical studies. The web of relationships and historical context in which these authors are placed provide an understanding of their importance for a wider discourse on translation in Italy and Europe in the 1940s. Caterina Paoli's original analysis of Sbarbaro's and Bemporad's poetic translations and her emphasis on their relevance for translation studies, women's writing and classical reception, fills a significant gap in current scholarship on the translation of ancient literature in the Italian poetic community.

'There is no doubt that the present splendid volume ... is likely to remain unrivalled for many years to come for width of coverage, richness of detail, and elegance of presentation.' Modern Language Reviews

Established as a standard work - covers the whole of Italy not just the Risorgimento itself.

Drawing on a long-standing tradition of fictional images, British writers of the Romantic period defined and constructed Italy as a land that naturally invites inscription and description. In their works, Italy is a cultural geography so heavily overwritten with discourse that it becomes the natural recipient of further fictional transformations. If critics have frequently attended to this figurative complex and its related Italophilia, what seems to have been left relatively unexplored is the fact that these representations were paralleled and sustained by intense scholarly activities. This volume specifically addresses Romantic-period scholarship about Italian literature, history, and culture under the interconnected rubrics of ‘translating’, ‘reviewing’, and ‘rewriting’. The essays in this book consider this rich field of scholarly activity in order to redraw its contours and examine its connections with the fictional images of Italy and the general fascination with this land and its civilization that are a crucial component of British culture between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies is a two-volume reference book containing some 600 entries on all aspects of Italian literary culture. It includes analytical essays on authors and works, from the most important figures of Italian literature to little known authors and works that are influential to the field. The Encyclopedia is distinguished by substantial articles on critics, themes, genres, schools, historical surveys, and other topics related to the overall subject of Italian literary studies. The Encyclopedia also includes writers and subjects of contemporary interest, such as those relating to journalism, film, media, children's literature, food and vernacular literatures. Entries consist of an essay on the topic and a bibliographic portion listing works for further reading, and, in the case of entries on individuals, a brief biographical paragraph and list of works by the person. It will be useful to people without specialized knowledge of Italian literature as well as to scholars.

Periodisation is an ever-present feature of the grammar of history-writing. As with all grammatical rules, the order it imposes can both liberate and stifle. Though few historians would consider their period boundaries as anything more than useful guidelines, heuristic artifice all too easily congeals into immovable structure, blinkering the historical gaze. Researchers of literature are, of course, challenged by similar dilemmas. Here, too, the neatness of periodisation can obscure the cultural output of awkward individuals that do not fit the right chronological corset, whilst also creating unfounded expectations of shared experience and expression. Rather than discard periodisation altogether, in this cross-disciplinary volume an international group of historians and literary scholars presents different ways in which accepted period boundaries in modern European history can be challenged and rethought. To do so, they explore unnoticed continuities, and instances of delayed cultural transfer that defy easy periodisation; adopt the perspective of social groups that standard periodisation schemes have ignored; and consider how historical actors themselves divide up history and how this can affect their actions.