A History of British Attitudes to
Italy.
Part II
Second half of Seventeenth
cent.
• An eclipse of the interest for Italy in
English literature.
• Major exception:John Milton
– Proficient in Italian. Wrote poetry in Italian
– Drew inspiration from Italian sonnets and
authors, Della Casa, Tasso, Diodati, Galileo.
– Wrote sonnet “On the Late Massacre in
Piedmont” Valdesians
• Restoration comedy and tragedy inspired
by French models atrher than Italian
Eighteenth Century
• Age of classicism. Great presence of Italy.
– Travel writing. Accounts of the Grand Tour.
• Gothic romance.
An Italy without Italians
• XVIII century: Veneration for Italy but
contempt for Italians
– Admiration for the cultural residue of Antiquity
and the Renaissance.
– Italy considered the cradle of European
culture.
• Europe’s museum
– A common legacy yet unconnected to
eighteenth century Italians
Italians as Betrayers of their
Legacy
• Decadence compared to past splendour
• Neglect of their splendid ruins
• Misuse of remains (Roman palaces built
with marble from the Forum)
• Absence of heroic stances among the
people
Common complaints about modern
Italy
• Indigence
– Poor living conditions, lack of hygiene
– Beggars, diseased people
• Crime:
– stories of dishonesty, cheating and theft at the expense of the
poor tourist
– banditti
• Social and political unrest,
• Corruption
• Sexual hot spot
– A country of go-betweens where young English gentlemen lose
their innocence.
– cicisbeismo
Sense of Superiority of British
Travellers
• Early Modern double rhetoric about Italy (fascinating but
wicked) continues but at a level of lower intensity.
– Italians no longer Machiavellian demons but poor devils
– Their religion no longer a threat but a source of contempt and
amusement
– Political life no longer a school of diplomacy but something to be
ignored
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Focus on conditions of life described as primitive.
Neglect of any examples of Italian hospitality, generosity.
No interest for present day culture and politics
Ridicule of Catholic religion.
– Superstition
– Ceremonies seen as folklore or exotic shows
• Roman Holy Week
Cultural colonialism
• Italy considered as a land to exploit
– Paintings, antiquities, objects from excavation brought back to
England as souvenirs
– Excavations (e.g. Pompei: involvement of Lord Hamilton)
– Interference in politics (Sardinia, Naples)
• Symbolic colonization: not an actual conquest but a
cultural discourse imposing imaginary qualities and
prerogatives onto places and people (see Orientalism by
Edward Said).
• British rhetoric about Italy similar to rhetoric about other
countries considered inferior
– Ireland,
– Colonies (what we now call third world)
Italy and Gothic Romance
• Italy played a fundamental role in the Gothic novel and
the Gothic novel made Italy familiar to many nontravellers
• Italy, with its sublime scenery which mixed loveliness
and terror, offered an ideal background for stories where
Burke’s “delightful horror” was quintessential.
• Gothic romances are often fictionalized travel narratives
in sublime scenery and provoking sublime emotions.
• The setting of the first Goithic romances is Italy (Horace
Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, Ann Radcliffe’s The
Italian and The Mysteries of Udolpho).
What is the Gothic romance
• A story containing mystery, the irrational, ghosts,
supernatural events.
• A story containing violence and passion
• Revolt against the moderation, the balance and the
rationalism of the preceding years
• Born out of revulsion from neoclassicism (reintroduces
what cannot be explained by reason)
• Characteristic of the age of the sublime rather than of
neoclassical harmony
• Influential from the 1760's to 1820's
– superseded by in the 1820’s by Scott’s historical romance
– 1850’s realistic rewritings (Brontes etc)
– Revival in the Victorian age Horror stories (Stevenson, Wilde
Structural Elements Connected to the Italian
Stereotype
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•
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Character types
– A pure virginal heroine
– A villain (corrupt aristocrat or clergyman):a perverted, Machiavellian
character (Italian stereotype:)
– Debased families (Italian stereotype)
Situation
– Persecution, torture and/or Imprisonment of the heroine (cf. Early
Modern Italian tragedies)
– Flight, travel from place to place (a revisitation of the grand tour)
Setting
– Sublime or picturesque scenery (typical of Italy)
• Frightening nature
• Castles dungeons, ruins
– Mysterious, unfamiliar places
– Often the Catholic church, with its monasteries and convents, and its
Inquisition provides the backdrop
– Exotic countries (especially Italy and Spain)
The Italy of the Romantics
• Romantic England “smitten with Italomania” (C.P. Brand )
• Travellers flocked to Italy in large numbers trying to compensate for
the years they had lost during the Napoleonic wars.
• The Italian language and literature formed part of young men’s and
women’s education.
• Scarcely a poet failed to travel to Italy (Wordsworth, Coleridge,
Byron, Shelley, Keats)
• Many poetical and fictional works connected with Italy (e.g. Byron’s
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV, his and P.B. Shelley’s plays,
Mary Shelley’s novel Valperga and many more)
• Artists. e.g. Turner
Fascination with Italy
• In an age when the love of nature is so important, Italy fascinates
artists and writers because of its natural variety and beauty and for
the presence of sublime and picturesque scenery.
• Also became fascinating for its history
– Classical past (excavations in Pompei and Herculaneum evoked cycles
of creation and destruction)
– Idealization of the Italy of the republics and of the city-states
• Interest for the present. Many English writers lived and participated
in political events (carbonari meetings, insurrectional movements)
– English Romantics took to heart the political aspirations of the Italians.
– The burgeoning Italian risorgimento was perceived as a European
renascence.