The Italian Idea
Anglo-Italian Radical Literary Culture, 1815–1823

A dual-perspective study of how English engagement with Italy, and the work of Italian exiles in London, radicalised Romantic poetry.

Will Bowers (Author)

9781108741378, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 February 2022

297 pages
22.7 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.434 kg

'The Italian Idea offers a fine contribution to the strong and durable critical interest in Anglo-Italian relations during the period. Particularly effective is Bowers's telescoping mode of inquiry, one that allows him to move nimbly between insightful close readings of individual works and a contextual regard for the complex ways that these works are warmed by the fading revolutionary coals of the post-Waterloo years.' John Bugg, Keats-Shelley Journal

From 1815 to 1823 the Italian influence on English literature was at its zenith. While English tourists flocked to Italy, a pervasive Italianism coloured many facets of London life, including poetry, periodicals, translation, and even the Queen's trial of 1820. In this engaging study Will Bowers considers this radical interaction by pursuing two interrelated analyses. The first examines the Italian literary and political ideas absorbed by Romantic poets, particularly Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The second uncovers the ambassadorial role played in London by Italians, such as Serafino Buonaiuti and Ugo Foscolo, who promoted a revolutionary idea of their homeland and its literature, particularly Dante's Commedia. This dual-perspective study reveals the cosmopolitan challenge to Regency mores embodied in both the work of Italian literary exiles in London and the English poetic engagement with Italy.

1. Italians and the 'public mind' before 1815
2. The genesis of an Italian style
3. Foscolo, Hobhouse, and Holland House
4. Venice redefined
5. An almost revolutionary queen
6. Sailing in the wind's eye.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD], Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]