The Motif of the Journey in Nineteenth-Century Italian Literature
"The anthology will provide a comprehensive overview of the journey as a structuring metaphor as it parallels or anticipates the revolutionary social and cultural changes taking place at a crucial juncture in Italian and European history."—Silvia Ruffo Fiore, University of South Florida
The journey is one of the most enduring and complex themes in the literature of Western civilization. These essays illustrate Italy’s contribution to the history of the trope during a time when countries became increasingly interdependent and conscious of each other’s cultures. Taking into account the inconsistencies and contradictions of the metaphor of the journey, they demonstrate that Italian authors of nineteenth-century fiction, poetry, and essays expanded its creative potential and its core of moral and artistic significance.
The authors—international specialists—include the distinguished scholar M. H. Abrams, who traces the most vital aspects of the journey motif in world literature from its biblical origins to this century.
This anthology will appeal to Italianists in general, to specialists on Romanticism, and to all students of European literature.
Contents
Introduction: Spiritual Travelers in Western Literature, by M. H. Abrams
Ugo Foscolo’s Europe: A Journey from the Sublime to Romantic Humor, by Gustavo Costa
The Italian Journey: From James to Eliot to Browning, by Eleanor Cook
Giacomo Leopardi: Journey from Illusions to Truth, by G. Singh
Of Swallows and Farewells: The Morality of Movement in Italian Literature of the Ottocento, by Antonino Musumeci
Italie-Italies: Typo/Topologies of French Travel Accounts in the Nineteenth Century, by Christian Bec
The Significance of the Journey in Manzoni, by S. B. Chandler
Verga, or The Impossible Journey, by Romano Luperini
The Journey in Ippolito Nievo’s Narrative: Typologies, by Marinella Colummi Camerino
Travel as Inspiration in Pascoli’s Poetry, by V. R. Giustiniani
New and Traditional Forms of Nineteenth-Century Travel Literature, by Elvio Guagnini Bruno Magliocchetti is Senior Tutor in the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto. Anthony Verna is associate professor in the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Grammatica applicata della lingua italiana and is the founder and editor of Rivista di studi italiani.
