- Università degli Studi “Gabriele d’Annunzio” Chieti-Pescara
Dipartimento di Lettere, Arti e Scienze Sociali (DILASS)
Campus Universitario
Vvia dei Vestini, 31 – 66100 Chieti Scalo
- Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century British Literature, Eighteenth-Century British Literature, Nineteenth-Century British Literature, Comparative Literature, English Literature, and 27 moreQueer Theory, Gender and Sexuality, Literature, Gender Studies, Popular Culture, Sexuality, Poststructuralist Theory, Victorian Literature, James Joyce, Vernon Lee, Anglo-Italian relations, Anglo-Italian Studies, Critical Theory, Semiotics, Literary Theory, Gender, Renaissance Studies, Gay And Lesbian Studies, History of Sexuality, Nineteenth Century Studies, Romanticism, John Keats, English Romanticism, Romantic poetry, Lord Byron, Hellenism, and Alexander Popeedit
- BA (Università IULM Milano) BA, MA (Università degli Studi di Milano) Ph.D. (Università degli Studi di Milano) Marco... moreBA (Università IULM Milano)
BA, MA (Università degli Studi di Milano)
Ph.D. (Università degli Studi di Milano)
Marco Canani is Associate Professor of English at the "G. d'Annunzio" University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy. He received his PhD in 2015 with the dissertation Vernon Lee and the Italian Renaissance: Plasticity, Gender, Genre, a study based on archival research conducted at Colby College (USA) and the University of Oxford (UK). In addition to essays on John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vernon Lee, and A.J. Cronin, he authored the monograph Ellenismi britannici. L’ellenismo nella poesia, nelle arti e nella cultura britannica dagli augustei al Romanticismo (2014), co-edited the collections Parallaxes: Virginia Woolf Meets James Joyce (2014) and Il romantico nel Classicismo / Il classico nel Romanticismo (2017), and co-authored the volume Introduzione allo studio della letteratura inglese (2017). In 2017, he delivered the Annual Keats Birthday Lecture at the Keats-Shelley House in Rome. His research interests include Romantic poetry, Anglo-Italian studies, and gender studies.edit
Special issue of "The Keats-Shelley Review" on the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre (1819). Adopting a variety of perspectives, the articles included in this issue all investigate Peterloo as a cause in and of itself, and the texts it... more
Special issue of "The Keats-Shelley Review" on the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre (1819). Adopting a variety of perspectives, the articles included in this issue all investigate Peterloo as a cause in and of itself, and the texts it spawned as the effects that ‘exceed’ it – prose, poetic, and visual texts which started from it but are irreducible to it, remediations of a brutal historical fact that recast it as real and imaginary, factual and fictional at once.
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La questione romantica. Rivista interdisciplinare di studi romantici
Nuova Serie Vol.12, n.1-2 (2020)
Nuova Serie Vol.12, n.1-2 (2020)
Research Interests: Romanticism, Idealism, Thomas Mann, Heritage Tourism, Cultural Tourism, and 14 moreBritish Romanticism, William Wordsworth, Cultural Memory, Romantic poetry, Dante, English Romanticism, Friedrich Hölderlin, Romantic Literature, Wordsworth, Keats, Charles Dickens, John Keats, Mary Shelley, and Wordsworth and English Romantic Poetry
Special issue of the international peer-reviewed "L'analisi linguistica e letteraria" Contributions by Francesco Rognoni | Marco Canani and Valentina Varinelli | Kelvin Everest | Will Bowers | Carla Pomarè | Marco Canani | Alberto... more
Special issue of the international peer-reviewed "L'analisi linguistica e letteraria"
Contributions by
Francesco Rognoni | Marco Canani and Valentina Varinelli | Kelvin Everest | Will Bowers | Carla Pomarè | Marco Canani | Alberto Bentoglio | Anna Anselmo | Antonella Braida | Lilla Maria Crisafulli | Michael Rossington
Contributions by
Francesco Rognoni | Marco Canani and Valentina Varinelli | Kelvin Everest | Will Bowers | Carla Pomarè | Marco Canani | Alberto Bentoglio | Anna Anselmo | Antonella Braida | Lilla Maria Crisafulli | Michael Rossington
Research Interests: British Literature, English Literature, Romanticism, British Romanticism, Romantic poetry, and 13 moreEnglish Romanticism, 19th Century British (Literature), Italy, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Milano, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Milan, Percy Shelley, Shelley Circle, Romantic English poetry, Shelley, and P B Shelley
‘Classico’ e ‘romantico’ sembrano a prima vista termini chiaramente distinti e diametralmente opposti tanto dal punto di vista delle caratteristiche formali e di contenuto che dal punto di vista della periodizzazione storica. In realtà... more
‘Classico’ e ‘romantico’ sembrano a prima vista termini chiaramente distinti e diametralmente opposti tanto dal punto di vista delle caratteristiche formali e di contenuto che dal punto di vista della periodizzazione storica. In realtà le periodizzazioni variano talvolta anche considerevolmente da paese a paese e in riferimento alle varie arti. Al di là di alcuni elementi formali e di contenuto effettivamente divergenti, le due ‘correnti’ artistiche hanno inoltre molte proprietà in comune, cosicché non è difficile rinvenire elementi romantici in opere comunemente considerate classicistiche ovvero elementi classici in opere attribuite al Romanticismo. Proprio questi momenti di trasversalità, di contaminazione e di sovrapposizione di ‘classico’ e ‘romantico’ nelle discussioni estetiche, nelle opere letterarie o nelle composizioni musicali, ma anche nella produzione pittorica o nelle creazioni architettoniche di diversi paesi europei costituiscono il tema su cui riflettono i contributi raccolti in questo volume.
Research Interests: Aesthetics, Romanticism, German Romanticism, Edmund Burke, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and 13 moreJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Aesthetics and Politics, Romantic poetry, English Romanticism, Classical Reception Studies, Franz Schubert, Schelling, Friedrich Hölderlin, Johann Gottfried Herder, John Keats, Alessandro Manzoni, Romanticismo, and Romantic English poetry
Perché il teatro occupa una posizione centrale nella civiltà letteraria inglese? Come nasce il romanzo e quali forme specifiche assume nell’isola? Come evolve la poesia inglese da quando gli elisabettiani importano il sonetto dall’Italia?... more
Perché il teatro occupa una posizione centrale nella civiltà letteraria inglese? Come nasce il romanzo e quali forme specifiche assume nell’isola? Come evolve la poesia inglese da quando gli elisabettiani importano il sonetto dall’Italia? Il volume fornisce una risposta a queste e altre domande, proponendosi come utile avviamento all’analisi del testo letterario inglese e offrendo una panoramica dello sviluppo dei principali generi: poesia, romanzo e teatro. Ogni capitolo è corredato di numerosi esempi distribuiti su un arco temporale che va dal Cinquecento al secondo Novecento. Insieme al tradizionale manuale di storia letteraria, questa guida presenta gli strumenti critico-metodologici indispensabili e le coordinate essenziali per lo studio della letteratura inglese.
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Borrowed from optics, the concept of parallax identifies the apparently relative position of objects according to the lines of sight determined by the viewer's standpoint. This concept proves particularly useful in opening new insights... more
Borrowed from optics, the concept of parallax identifies the apparently relative position of objects according to the lines of sight determined by the viewer's standpoint. This concept proves particularly useful in opening new insights into the work of two major authors of Modernist literature: although coincidentally born and deceased in the same years (1882-1941), James Joyce and Virginia Woolf are seldom the object of a joint outlook. Such a watertight separation is witnessed by the scarcity of scholarly works concerned with the relationship between two authors who, on the other hand, often feature together in studies and anthologies on Modernism. Parallaxes fills this void by tackling the many implications of Woolf and Joyce’s difficult—if not failed—encounter, and provides new perspectives on the connections between their work. The essays in the volume investigate the works of the two writers—seven decades after their death—from a variety of angles, both singularly and jointly, stimulating dialogue between scholars in both Woolf and Joyce studies.
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This book explores the British reception of Hellenism from the Augustan Age to the Romantics. Its main focus lies on the poetry of Alexander Pope, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats, along with the paintings of... more
This book explores the British reception of Hellenism from the Augustan Age to the Romantics. Its main focus lies on the poetry of Alexander Pope, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Keats, along with the paintings of Benjamin West, Gavin Hamilton, and George Frederic Watts. The constant longing for a model of ideal perfection, opposed to the idiosyncrasies of the present, suggests that British "Hellenisms" should be read in meta-historical and meta-literary terms. By investigating the influence of Ancient Greek culture on eighteenth and early nineteenth-century literature and art in England and Scotland, this study offers interesting insights into the cyclical re-appropriation of the discourses of Hellenism in Britain.
Research Interests: English Literature, Romanticism, Nineteenth Century Studies, British Romanticism, Virginia Woolf, and 21 moreRomantic poetry, History of Collections, English Romanticism, Collecting and Collections, Hellenism, Alexander Pope, Reception of Antiquity, Lord Byron, Eighteenth-Century British Art, John Keats, British Museum, Neoclassicism, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Neo-Classicism, Elgin Marbles, Augustan Age, Henry Fuseli, Romantic Hellenism & philhellenism, Romantic English poetry, and Lawrence Alma Tadema
The article analyses the impact of social media (SM) applications on English Language Teaching (ELT) by focusing on their integration into classroom practice. By drawing on a survey conducted among the students of the “G. d’Annunzio”... more
The article analyses the impact of social media (SM) applications on English Language Teaching (ELT) by focusing on their integration into classroom practice. By drawing on a survey conducted among the students of the “G. d’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara, two accounts recently set up on TikTok – the SM app based on the creation and sharing of short videos – are considered as tools to improve class practice for the teaching of English vocabulary, pronunciation, and idioms. The quantitative analysis adopted in the survey provides the notional ground for two sample lesson plans in which the integration of these TikTok videos into a Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) approach is proposed. The motivation aroused by the short videos and the students’ perceived usefulness of these profiles prove instrumental in devising teaching strategies that may be successfully implemented in the EFL/ESL classroom.
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This article argues that transgression provides an illuminating critical category to examine the narrative construction of John Boyne’s "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" (2006). Boyne’s decision to entrust his testimonial narrative to... more
This article argues that transgression provides an illuminating critical category to examine the narrative construction of John Boyne’s "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" (2006). Boyne’s decision to entrust his testimonial narrative to Bruno, the son of an SS commander, produces a representational uncertainty that is reminiscent of Theodor Adorno’s claims on post-Auschwitz aesthetics. Bruno’s fictional testimony is marked by a difficulty in conceptualising experience via language, which reveals voids in his cognizance of reality. This epistemic modality, however, is transgressed by the interaction of words and images in the film version of the novel.
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Il saggio esamina l’eredità dantesca, in particolare dal punto di vista linguistico, nell’opera di George Eliot. L'obiettivo è quello di mettere in luce luce come la lettura politica di Dante, elaborata dal pensiero radicale del primo... more
Il saggio esamina l’eredità dantesca, in particolare dal punto di vista linguistico, nell’opera di George Eliot. L'obiettivo è quello di mettere in luce luce come la lettura politica di Dante, elaborata dal pensiero radicale del primo Ottocento inglese, si interseca con la recente storia britannica in Felix Holt, The Radical (1866) e Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life (1871). Nei due romanzi di Eliot, che ripercorrono il dibattito che prelude al Reform Act del 1832, testo e paratesto concorrono, in un dialogo intessuto di riferimenti ed allusioni, a rileggere l’opera dantesca nel quadro delle vicende e delle riforme politiche nazionali.
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Between the mid-nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, Tuscany was home to an intellectually vibrant Anglo-American community. Unsurprisingly, the region was the subject of a number of travelogues by English and American... more
Between the mid-nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, Tuscany was home to an intellectually vibrant Anglo-American community. Unsurprisingly, the region was the subject of a number of travelogues by English and American ‘expatriates’, that is, observing subjects whose gaze is simultaneously placed within and without the landscape and the culture that they explore. This article examines the work of British-born, expatriate writers Janet Ross and Vernon Lee, and argues that their travel memoirs represent Tuscan landscapes as a blotting paper conflating culture and the environment. Ross’s Italian Sketches (1887) and Old Florence and Modern Tuscany (1904) and Lee’sThe Enchanted Woods (1905) and The Tower of the Mirrors (1914) appropriate the conventions of visual and verbal sketches to blur the distinction between environment and landscape on the one hand, and between objective descriptions and subjective impressions on the other. In so doing, Ross’s andLee’s representations of Tuscan landscapes rest on an imbrication of visual and verbal elements that foreground the interplay of individual and cultural memory.
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George Eliot’s dialogue with Romanticism is an especially significant, albeit not unproblematic, aspect of her work. In examining the importance of memory in her writings, and her organic view of society, Newton (1981) defined Eliot a... more
George Eliot’s dialogue with Romanticism is an especially significant, albeit not unproblematic, aspect of her work. In examining the importance of memory in her writings, and her organic view of society, Newton (1981) defined Eliot a “Romantic humanist”, suggesting that she embraced the philosophical humanism of the early nineteenth century without its metaphysical views and aesthetic egotism. Eliot’s letters amply document her reading of English and European Romantic writers, and critics have especially traced the influence of William Wordsworth and George Gordon Byron in The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, and Middlemarch (Dramin 1998; Wilkes 2013; Kei 2015). Her response to Percy Bysshe Shelley, instead, has only marginally been explored. Yet in Middlemarch she makes explicit reference to the poet twice. Mr. Brooke defines Ladislaw as “a kind of Shelley”, “a sort of Burke with a leaven of Shelley” (Eliot 2003, 359; 499). The article investigates Eliot’s dialogue with Shelley with a focus on the political and reformist aspect of her writings. To this end, I shall firstly focus on biographical evidence, discussing the role of G. H. Lewes and Thornton Leigh Hunt – co-editors of the radical paper The Leader in the 1850s – as possible mediators. Subsequently, I shall examine Shelley’s influence on Eliot with a focus on Ladislaw’s and Dorothea’s socialist and utopian views in Middlemarch.
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The tragedy that became crystallized in cultural memory as ‘Peterloo’ provided one of the darkest pages in British history, but also one of the best documented nineteenth-century events. The interest of the press, and the large number of... more
The tragedy that became crystallized in cultural memory as ‘Peterloo’ provided one of the darkest pages in British history, but also one of the best documented nineteenth-century events. The interest of the press, and the large number of participants, produced a polyphonic, multifarious corpus made of reports, eyewitness accounts, memoirs and testimonies, as well as poetic and prose texts. As a critical introduction to this monographic issue of The Keats-Shelley Review, the article discusses ‘Peterloo’ as an event whose historical and sociopolitical significance is also dependent on its manifold representations across time, genres, and discourses. Both factual or fictional, texts, it is suggested, contributed to construing Peterloo as an event by interrogating and emplotting facts, thus determining their shape and significance.
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Between the 1880s and World War II English travel writing was characterised by profound transformations that responded to contemporary changes at a cultural as well as at an aesthetic level. In this article I argue that Vernon Lee’s and... more
Between the 1880s and World War II English travel writing was characterised by profound transformations that responded to contemporary changes at a cultural as well as at an aesthetic level. In this article I argue that Vernon Lee’s and D. H. Lawrence’s Italian travel memoirs are especially representative of these changes insofar as they conflate subjective impressions with realistic descriptions, and imbricate wider considerations on the cultural history of Italy onto their verbal portraits of landscapes and places. Particularly in 'Genius Loci' and ''Twilight in Italy', Lee and Lawrence blur the boundaries between the realistic representation of places and their own response to the sites they visit. In so doing, they conflate subjective impressions with history on the one hand, and individual recollections with cultural memory on the other. Crucial to this dialogue between present and past is the role that Lee and Lawrence acknowledge to the spirit of place, but also their conception of the Renaissance as a cultural category which, branching far beyond its historical boundaries, they consider to be the driving force of Italian culture.
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The concept of the literary canon has been extensively debated and questioned as the result of a process of critical negotiation including scholarly discourse as well as editorial and didactic practices. This complex network of cultural,... more
The concept of the literary canon has been extensively debated and questioned as the result of a process of critical negotiation including scholarly discourse as well as editorial and didactic practices. This complex network of cultural, social, and economic factors is also crucial to defining an author’s own canon, that is, the body of works that best identifies a writer’s authorial identity. With specific reference to English Romanticism, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s works represent a relevant case in point, marked as they are by a long and established tradition of textual studies and critical editions. Interestingly, Shelley’s notebooks dating to 1820-1821 include a number of poems and fragments written in Italian, either as original compositions or, more frequently, as attempts at self-translation. Until recently, Shelley’s “Italian corpus” has received only marginal critical attention, viewed as best as a token of his infatuation with Emilia Viviani while he was living in Pisa. This article examines Shelley’s Italian poetic corpus in order to discuss its relevance within his oeuvre, and it argues that these Italian fragments provide significant insights into the poet’s readings and literary models between 1820 and 1821. Moreover, these texts testify to Shelley’s constant exploration of, and engagement with, poetic conventions and poetic discourse. Viewed in this light, such “poetic flotsam” acquires new importance within Shelley’s canon.
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This article adopts a historical and biographical perspective in order to investigate Percy Bysshe Shelley’s experience of Milan in April 1818. To this end, I trace the Shelleys’ arrival in the city and focus on the places they visited,... more
This article adopts a historical and biographical perspective in order to investigate Percy Bysshe Shelley’s experience of Milan in April 1818. To this end, I trace the Shelleys’ arrival in the city and focus on the places they visited, their contacts, and the encounters they made so as to re- construct the poet’s “Milanese circle”. Subsequently, I focus on “Ode to Naples” and Hellas and argue that Shelley’s references to the medieval and early modern history of the city should be seen as transhistorical allusions to the political contingency of the Lombardo-Venetian capital after the Hapsburg restoration.
Research Interests: British Literature, English Literature, Romanticism, British Romanticism, Romantic poetry, and 11 moreEnglish Romanticism, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Milano, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Percy Shelley, Shelley Circle, Romantic English poetry, Shelley, P B Shelley, and Claire Clairmont (1798-1879)
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s first biographers suggest that water was a mesmerizing presence in his life. Particularly the mid nineteenth-century life-writings written by Shelley’s friends Thomas Medwin (1847), Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1858), and... more
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s first biographers suggest that water was a mesmerizing presence in his life. Particularly the mid nineteenth-century life-writings written by Shelley’s friends Thomas Medwin (1847), Thomas Jefferson Hogg (1858), and Edward Trelawny (1858) narrate the poet’s '‘water sublime’ from end-to-start, almost searching for incidents and poetic hints that might anticipate Shelley’s fate. Indeed, Shelley’s poetry provides several examples of his sublime attraction to water. In “Mont Blanc” (1818), water is depicted in the sinuosity of the flowing streams and in the unfathomable magnificence of the ice blocks, while “The Cloud” (1818- 19) suggests Shelley’s knowledge of Adam Walker’s and Luke Howard’s studies. More significantly, water becomes a metaphor for poetic creation in "A Defence of Poetry" (1821). By interrelating life-writing and poetry, this article investigates the role of water in Shelley’s life and work in the light of his pantheistic views. By focusing on contemporary sites of memory, the article subsequently discusses the ways in which water has been associated to Shelley’s image in cultural memory, taking into account several media, from lithographs to paintings and monuments. In addition to Shelley’s graves in Rome, The Rising Universe – the kinetic memorial installed in Horsham for the poet’s bicentenary in 1996 – suggests water as a primal source of inspiration and experience for the poet. From this perspective, material culture responds to Shelley’s old and new biographies, creating a narrative that, at least in part, re-writes his life from his death.
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Shakespeare’s presence in contemporary culture is ubiquitous, yet his works seem to be tangled up in a sort of elitist, highbrow veneer, which teachers may struggle to brush off. As a consequence, educational practitioners often resort to... more
Shakespeare’s presence in contemporary culture is ubiquitous, yet his works seem to be tangled up in a sort of elitist, highbrow veneer, which teachers may struggle to brush off. As a consequence, educational practitioners often resort to rewritings, adaptations and appropriations of Shakespeare’s works in an attempt to reach their young audience. YouTube and other file-sharing platforms, such as Tumblr, Daily Motion and TED Talks, however, may prove extremely useful for designing new approaches to Shakespeare that rely on the manifold connections between the Bard and music. Accordingly, this essay proposes some teaching strategies drawing on hip-hop, rap and contemporary music to introduce Shakespeare's sonnets and plays in the classroom. Although it does not aim to provide an actual lesson plan, this essay explores some of the connections between the Bard and music that teachers may exploit. This may be done through warm-up, lead-in and wind-down activities, or through student-centred tasks. These affinities are investigated in both directions, from Shakespeare’s texts and contexts to music, and vice versa, paying specific attention to the work of the American poet Erik Didriksen and the British rapper Akala before dwelling on the role of music in "The Merchant of Venice".
Research Interests: Theatre Studies, Teaching English as a Second Language, Literature, Didactics, Shakespeare, and 17 morePoetry, Adaptation, Drama, Sonnets, Hip-Hop/Rap, Shakespearean Drama, Contemporary Poetry, Adaptation (Literature), Theatre, Hip-Hop Studies, Teaching Shakespeare, Shakespeare adaptation, William Shakespeare, Hip Hop Culture, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Adaptation and Appropriation Theory, and Shakespearean literature
This article examines the work of British rapper Akala from the viewpoint of literary theory and literature as a social practice, discussing to what extent Shakespeare's work can inspire unprivileged audiences in meaningful new ways. Born... more
This article examines the work of British rapper Akala from the viewpoint of literary theory and literature as a social practice, discussing to what extent Shakespeare's work can inspire unprivileged audiences in meaningful new ways. Born Kingslee James Daley, Akala's work is rooted in his Afro-Caribbean background, drama, and the black hip-hop culture of the 1990s. Having founded his independent music label in 2003, in his breakthrough single "Shakespeare" (2006) Akala invited his audience to challenge stereotypical assumptions on hip-hop and rap, provocatively defining himself "like Shakespeare with a nigger twist". Inspired by a freestyle challenge, the pastiche "Comedy Tragedy History" (2007) further appropriates the Shakespearean legacy, dispelling canonical distinctions between high and low culture. After mapping Akala's ideas on music and poetry, this article explores his reworking of Shakespearean texts in the context of Todorov's argument on the plasticity of literary genres, with a specific focus on Akala's appropriation of Shakespeare's language. It then argues that Akala's appropriation strategies also surface in the activity of The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company, discussing Akala's workshop at Milan's Juvenile Detention Centre Cesare Beccaria as a case study. As a last point, the article purports to re-contextualise the role of classic literature in contemporary society in the wake of such thinkers as Bourdieu and Nussbaum.
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English literature and culture reveals a long and articulate reflection on the adoption of the ‘Pythagorean’ or ‘natural’ diet, which would later become vegetarianism. Established in 1847, the Vegetarian Society was crucial in... more
English literature and culture reveals a long and articulate reflection on the adoption of the ‘Pythagorean’ or ‘natural’ diet, which would later become vegetarianism. Established in 1847, the Vegetarian Society was crucial in institutionalizing food and cultural practices that were already established in England.
During the Romantic Age, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s defence of the vegetarian diet significantly shaped his life and reflection. This article explores Shelley’s views on the necessity of adopting a ‘natural’ diet, suggesting that his vegetarianism stemmed from both ethical principles and his knowledge of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century anatomy. It then argues that in Shelley’s thought Ancient Greek culture and mythology forestalled and illustrated what contemporary anatomy would prove. To this end, this article examines both biographical and poetic evidence taken from Shelley’s letters and works before focusing on his pamphlets ‘A Vindication of Natural Diet’ (1812) and ‘On the Vegetable System of Diet’ (1814-15).
During the Romantic Age, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s defence of the vegetarian diet significantly shaped his life and reflection. This article explores Shelley’s views on the necessity of adopting a ‘natural’ diet, suggesting that his vegetarianism stemmed from both ethical principles and his knowledge of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century anatomy. It then argues that in Shelley’s thought Ancient Greek culture and mythology forestalled and illustrated what contemporary anatomy would prove. To this end, this article examines both biographical and poetic evidence taken from Shelley’s letters and works before focusing on his pamphlets ‘A Vindication of Natural Diet’ (1812) and ‘On the Vegetable System of Diet’ (1814-15).
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Tra la fin-de-siècle e il primo Novecento, la cultura e la letteratura inglese sono ricche di suggestioni che provengono dal cuore della civiltà occidentale, fino a farsi distintamente italiane e “italiche.” In particolare, è sulla soglia... more
Tra la fin-de-siècle e il primo Novecento, la cultura e la letteratura inglese sono ricche di suggestioni che provengono dal cuore della civiltà occidentale, fino a farsi distintamente italiane e “italiche.” In particolare, è sulla soglia tra romanità e grecità che si situa il fascino misterioso della civiltà etrusca, fascino destinato a svilupparsi soprattutto in età vittoriana. E a dare nuova linfa all’“etruscomania” britannica nei decenni che segnano il passaggio verso il secolo breve saranno "expats”, espatriati come Vernon Lee, D. H. Lawrence e Edith Wharton, il cui sguardo attento a intende sciogliere l’alone di mistero che circonda le vicende etrusche.
Se certamente apprezzati sono gli Sketches of Etruscan Places di D. H. Lawrence, minore attenzione hanno ricevuto le osservazioni di Vernon Lee. L'articolo indaga il carattere di modernità che investe la nozione di etrusco nell'Inghilterra tardo-vittoriana, mettendo a fuoco le osservazioni (e le intuizioni) di Lee. Snodandosi, seppure in modo frammentario, tra volumi di critica estetica (Euphorion,1884; Renaissance Fancies and Studies, 1895), storie fantastiche ("A Worldy Woman", 1892) e travelogues (The Tower of the Mirrors, 1914; Genius Loci, unpublished series, ca. 1920-28), la riflessione di Lee insegue la genealogia e l’eredità artistica della civiltà etrusca, collocandole in una linea evolutiva che congiunge, senza soluzione di continuità, l’arte greca ai maestri rinascimentali.
Se certamente apprezzati sono gli Sketches of Etruscan Places di D. H. Lawrence, minore attenzione hanno ricevuto le osservazioni di Vernon Lee. L'articolo indaga il carattere di modernità che investe la nozione di etrusco nell'Inghilterra tardo-vittoriana, mettendo a fuoco le osservazioni (e le intuizioni) di Lee. Snodandosi, seppure in modo frammentario, tra volumi di critica estetica (Euphorion,1884; Renaissance Fancies and Studies, 1895), storie fantastiche ("A Worldy Woman", 1892) e travelogues (The Tower of the Mirrors, 1914; Genius Loci, unpublished series, ca. 1920-28), la riflessione di Lee insegue la genealogia e l’eredità artistica della civiltà etrusca, collocandole in una linea evolutiva che congiunge, senza soluzione di continuità, l’arte greca ai maestri rinascimentali.
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Percy Bysshe Shelley, a Vegetarian Poet.
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Scholars have often pinpointed the connections between Vernon Lee’s works and her complex sexuality. The protagonists of her supernatural tales have been the object of extensive study in that they eschew neat gender categorizations and... more
Scholars have often pinpointed the connections between Vernon Lee’s works and her complex sexuality. The protagonists of her supernatural tales have been the object of extensive study in that they eschew neat gender categorizations and repeatedly sublimate sexual drive into subjugation and murder. Lee’s writings as an aesthetic critic, by comparison, have mostly been explored in connection with Water Pater’s work. In this article I argue that in Euphorion and Renaissance Fancies and Studies Lee’s allusions to Pater’s thought shape not only her construction of gendered authorship, but also the textual representation of gender and sexuality. Characters like Héloïse and Nicolette endorse transgression and prove able to master stereotypical masculine functions, pointing to the de-sexualisation of gender roles. In addition, Lee’s interest in Franciscanism and the Renaissance iconography of the Madonna provide a historical legitimization of non-normativised forms of sexual desire, which should be viewed from a queer perspective.
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Vernon Lee's (1856-1935) identity was significantly shaped by her cosmopolitan and multilingual upbringing. Born in France to British parents, she spent her adult life in Italy, and her readings and correspondence suggest that she was a... more
Vernon Lee's (1856-1935) identity was significantly shaped by her cosmopolitan and multilingual upbringing. Born in France to British parents, she spent her adult life in Italy, and her readings and correspondence suggest that she was a plurilingual intellectual and writer. Because she lived and worked in such a multicultural milieu, it is difficult to define Lee's writing from the viewpoint of sheer nationality, which is not as relevant as her linguistic identity. Indeed, Lee's works are suspended between England, where her readership is based, and Italy, whose culture and art she explores with passion and intelligence. Written in Italian around 1890, the unpublished essay " Ville Romane: in memoriam " is a significant exception within Lee's production. After a short investigation into the reasons why Lee chose English as her literary language, the article evaluates the relevance of " Ville Romane " within Lee's reflections on landscape and cultural memory – a theme she often explores in her travelogues and aesthetic writings. Finally, Lee's written Italian is examined with specific focus on rhetorical strategies and lexical choices.
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Theodor Adorno‟s statement that to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric exemplifies the artists‟ loss for representational paradigms after the horrors of World War II. This issue is especially relevant when it comes to children‟s... more
Theodor Adorno‟s statement that to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric exemplifies the artists‟ loss for representational paradigms after the horrors of World War II. This issue is especially relevant when it comes to children‟s literature, and much scholarship has discussed whether conflicts and genocides should be suitable topics for the younger addressees. Published in 1971, Judith Kerr‟s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is an interesting case. In this article I argue that Kerr‟s book is a semi-autobiographical story which raises interesting considerations concerning representation, memory, language and discourse. I explain how, by telling the story of a nine-year old asylum-seeker, Kerr‟s novel reveals a dual tension between the need for those who survived the Shoah to elaborate trauma, and the role of testimonial literature in counterbalancing the risks of narratives of denial. I also suggest that, by portraying such events from a child‟s perspective, the novel focuses on the way refugee children attempt at defining their own identity once they leave their homeland and must settle in a host country.
Research Interests: Children's Literature, Children's Literature & Culture, Children's and Young Adult Literature, Second World War, Literature and Trauma, and 6 moreHistory and literature, War Trauma and Literature, Shoah, Holocaust Shoah, History of Holocaust Survivors In the Aftermath of World War II, and Judith Kerr
This essay takes a contrastive approach to the expediency of an intertextual approach to Keats’s poetry and his thinking about the nature of poetry. Keats, it is argued, becomes ‘indissolubly united’ to his predecessors, and such... more
This essay takes a contrastive approach to the expediency of an intertextual approach to Keats’s poetry and his thinking about the nature of poetry. Keats, it is argued, becomes ‘indissolubly united’ to his predecessors, and such intertextual relations are explored in relation to Harold Bloom’s ideas of poetic influence, Keats’s creative responses to Shakespeare, and further developed through an exploration of intertextuality and translation. The essay concludes with a detailed account of Italian translations of Keats’s poetry.
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Research Interests: Semiotics, Film Studies, James Joyce, Literature and cinema, Film Analysis, and 14 moreVisual Semiotics, Film Adaptation, Film Semiotics, Film and Media Studies, Movies, Cinema Studies, Joyce, Movie, Intersemiotic Translation, Semiotica, James Joyce & Irish Studies, Intersemiotics, James Joyce The Dubliners, and John Huston
"In his rede lecture on 'The Two Cultures' (University of Cambridge, 1959), the scientist and novelist C.P. Snow denounces the «sheer loss» caused by the polarization of sciences and humanities in twentieth-century western society. For... more
"In his rede lecture on 'The Two Cultures' (University of Cambridge, 1959), the scientist and novelist C.P. Snow denounces the «sheer loss» caused by the polarization of sciences and humanities in twentieth-century western society. For Snow the academic system is responsible for both the difficulty to train a modern and adequately skilled ruling class and the lack of a place where both cultures may meet and cross-fertilize each other. However, nineteenth-century english fiction seems to have attempted to bridge this gap and reconcile scientific progress and mainstream culture.
in the 1930s, the debate concerning the efficiency and the costs of the healthcare system, and the project of the national health service in great Britain drew the attention of the public to medicine as a branch of science having a tangible impact on everyday life. such aspects are investigated in the fiction of a number of physician writers. the essay focuses on archibald Joseph Cronin (1896-1981) and his bestselling novel The Citadel (1937), which contributed to the coeval debate on the foundation of the NHS, while Cronin’s last work, Doctor Finlay of Tannochbrae (1978), portrays a ‘postmodern’ healthcare provider who recognizes the importance of both scientific knowledge and social support. The essay explores the works of Cronin as one of those physicians who, by becoming literary authors, popularized medical fiction as a genre. Its focus lies on the portrayal of doctors who, by acknowledging the importance of professional ethics, depart from the faustian cliché of the scientist and provide a place where ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ sciences meet."
in the 1930s, the debate concerning the efficiency and the costs of the healthcare system, and the project of the national health service in great Britain drew the attention of the public to medicine as a branch of science having a tangible impact on everyday life. such aspects are investigated in the fiction of a number of physician writers. the essay focuses on archibald Joseph Cronin (1896-1981) and his bestselling novel The Citadel (1937), which contributed to the coeval debate on the foundation of the NHS, while Cronin’s last work, Doctor Finlay of Tannochbrae (1978), portrays a ‘postmodern’ healthcare provider who recognizes the importance of both scientific knowledge and social support. The essay explores the works of Cronin as one of those physicians who, by becoming literary authors, popularized medical fiction as a genre. Its focus lies on the portrayal of doctors who, by acknowledging the importance of professional ethics, depart from the faustian cliché of the scientist and provide a place where ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ sciences meet."
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Modernism was marked by a deep concern with sexuality and gender identities. Ellis’s and Carpenter’s works were pioneering in their attempt to disentangle the hard knot of heteronormativity, while Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde were... more
Modernism was marked by a deep concern with sexuality and gender identities. Ellis’s and Carpenter’s works were pioneering in their attempt to disentangle the hard knot of heteronormativity, while Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde were regarded by some as a threat to society because they had taken over “the traditional idiosyncrasies of the feminine rôle” (Lewis 1989: 244). This article will argue that the sexual politics embedded in the works of Virginia Woolf anticipate the discourse of sexual identity formulated by queer theory. Depicted as the object of both heterosexual and bisexual desire, the protagonist of Jacob’s Room (1922) explores the multifaceted nature of gender identity while Between the Acts (1941) deals with issues of gender and sexual desire within a well-defined cultural milieu.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Sex and Gender, Modernism (Literature), Queer Theory, and 12 moreSexuality, Gender and Sexuality, History of Sexuality, Gender, Modernist Literature (Literary Modernism), Virginia Woolf, Queer Theory (Literature), Gender and Sexuality Studies, Modernism, Sexuality And Culture, Queer, and Virginia Woolf Studies
Food is a leitmotiv in Dickens’s novels, and in Great Expectations it appears to be the objective correlative of the social rank and the moral stance of the characters. This is especially evident in the verbal and visual representation of... more
Food is a leitmotiv in Dickens’s novels, and in Great Expectations it appears to be the objective correlative of the social rank and the moral stance of the characters. This is especially evident in the verbal and visual representation of Miss Havisham’s decaying banquet: by letting food putrefy, Miss Havisham reduces her own body as mere flesh to feast upon, and it is only by nourishing herself on other bodies that she can satiate her appetites. After exploring how Dickens relates the verbal and visual representation of food to the depiction of his characters’ emotionality, this essay focuses on Miss Havisham’s banquet and its literary ‘afterlife’ in James Joyce’s “The Dead”.
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Overshadowed by the role of Byron as the poet of the newly-born national identity, the reception of Keats's work in Italy was significantly belated in comparison to the other English Romantics. In the last two decades of the nineteenth... more
Overshadowed by the role of Byron as the poet of the newly-born national identity, the reception of Keats's work in Italy was significantly belated in comparison to the other English Romantics. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, however, Italian critics and writers became increasingly interested in his poetry. Owing to the pivotal role of Enrico Nencioni in constructing the image of Keats as an artist of modernity, as I shall argue, Keats became an icon of pleasure and sensuality that drew the interest of the Italian decadents since the 1880s. In this context, my contention is that Keats may have contributed to the aesthetic development of the young Gabriele D'Annunzio in ways which have often been neglected by an almost exclusive focus on Percy Bysshe Shelley's influence on this writer. By extolling the pictorial and plastic aspects of Keats's faultless " arabesques, " perfected by " the modern element of passion, " Nencioni's articles in the Nuova antologia shaped the image of Keats as the poet of pleasure and beauty. Filtered through this perspective, D'Annunzio's reading of Keats was directed to the sensuousness and opulence of his lines, and that union of sensuality, beauty and transience already stressed by Mario Praz in Romantic Agony (1933). Having mapped such elements, my paper shall investigate Keats's influence on D'Annunzio's works, namely his articles in La Tribuna, his collection of poetry L'Isotteo (1186; 1890) and The Child of Pleasure (1889), which include references to Endymion (1818).
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In a letter written in the 1870s, George Eliot defined biographers as “a disease of English literature”. Scholars should certainly be less biased than Eliot, but biography as a literary genre is undeniably rooted in British culture.... more
In a letter written in the 1870s, George Eliot defined biographers as “a disease of English literature”. Scholars should certainly be less biased than Eliot, but biography as a literary genre is undeniably rooted in British culture. English literature is in fact “filled with a long and proud tradition of life writing, all the way from the exemplary and moralistic to the critical and iconoclastic” (Bostridge 2004: xi), as the massive Oxford Dictionary of National Biography proves with its over 50,000 biographies written by about 10,000 contributors. After the well-known works of Walter Jackson Bate (1963), Robert Gittings (1968) and Andrew Motion (1997), three new biographies of John Keats have been issued over the last four years. Before Denise Gigante’s insights into the life of Keats as the brother of the less-known George (The Keats’s Brothers: the Life of John and George, 2011) and Nicholas Roe’s John Keats: A New Life (2012), in 2009 Jane Campion hit the box office with the motion picture Bright Star, a romantic, romanticised and poetic biography of the last three years of Keats’s life and his troubled love for Fanny Brawne. By looking into these three works in relation to existing knowledge on Keats’s life, this paper tries to ascertain to which extent the constraints imposed by different media (and hence by different targets) may change the way biographical facts are presented, provide new knowledge and contribute to the creation of a popular myth. As a matter of fact, as Bolter and Grusin remarked over a decade ago, no medium or single media event can do “its cultural work” in isolation from other media or other social and economic forces, while at the same time every medium constantly refashion itself in order to “answer the challenges” posed by the other media (Bolter and Grusin 1999: 15). On the one hand, Campion’s film is worth investigating as an instance of remediation for making biographical facts fit the screen and the public of moviegoers, and it seems interesting to consider both the script and the non-verbal content of her movie in relation to the content available through other media. Because of the hybrid status of the film, it is crucial to reflect on whether Campion ought to be regarded not only as a film director, but also as an author or a biographer. On top of that, as far as the creation of a popular myth goes, it seems equally pertinent to take into consideration the relationship existing between remediation and “repurposing” as a “practice of adapting a ‘property’ for a number of different media venues” (Bolter and Grusin 1999: 273) in order to investigate the ways in which Campion’s Bright Star may have affected (or was influenced by) other cultural products and markets. On the other hand, biography as a genre raises similar questions, as it is a “bastard” product of the “unholy alliance” of “fiction and fact” (Holmes 1995: 15). Just like Campion’s film may be considered a hybrid, so should biography as a genre: as Bostridge (2004) notes, there seems to have been much debate going on about whether biography should be considered a branch of historiography or literature. Besides, if, to borrow Bolter and Grusin’s words once more, refashioning within a specific medium is to be considered as a case of remediation, Gigante’s and Roe’s works should be taken into consideration as part of the intertextual network they establish with the existing biographies of Keats. The subheading of Roe’s work seems particularly interesting from this point of view. Furthermore, it is also worth trying to figure out whether the decision of the publishing industry to issue two new biographies within a span of just one year was somehow encouraged by the success (and the revenues) of Campion’s motion picture. Having mapped these points, I shall finally consider Gigante’s and Roe’s written works and Campion’s motion picture contrastively, in order to pinpoint their approach in analysing and narrating Keats’s life. The aims is to understand whether and why they have decided to embrace or discharge what Gillies names the “cradle-to-grave approach” (Gillies 2009: 58) and, with specific reference to Bright Star, to explore how a film may deal with biographical facts that would be confined to the space of endnotes in a written volume.
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As Percy Bysshe Shelley pointed out in “A Defense of Poetry” (1821), all translations inevitably result in a loss. In particular, much is at stake in the case of poetry, insofar as meaning is tightly connected with form, and rhythmical... more
As Percy Bysshe Shelley pointed out in “A Defense of Poetry” (1821), all translations inevitably result in a loss. In particular, much is at stake in the case of poetry, insofar as meaning is tightly connected with form, and rhythmical and metrical patterns are predominant both as semantic and thematic choices. Besides, echoes and cross-references pose an even tougher challenge. Translating intertextuality is especially complex in the case of “culturally specific texts”. On the one hand, translating always moves from an individual hermeneutic process, and the translator must possess wide literary knowledge in order to detect the intertextual network that lies under the surface of the source text. On the other hand, cross-cultural barriers may mine the reproducibility of this network within the receiving cultural context. To some extent, the translation of intertextuality may be conceived as a “translation of a translation” (Papagyriou).
This paper intends to explore the (un)translatability of intertextuality by focussing on the Italian translations of John Keats’s (1795-1821) “When I Have Fears” (1818). In this sonnet it is possible to trace echoes and allusions, at once explicit and indirect, to Shakespeare’s poetical works, and in particular to his sonnet XII. The metrical, syntactical and semantic solutions adopted by different translators over a span of fifteen years will be analysed in an attempt to establish whether and to which extent intracultural and intertextual references may be effectively transferred to a different linguistic, literary and cultural context.
This paper intends to explore the (un)translatability of intertextuality by focussing on the Italian translations of John Keats’s (1795-1821) “When I Have Fears” (1818). In this sonnet it is possible to trace echoes and allusions, at once explicit and indirect, to Shakespeare’s poetical works, and in particular to his sonnet XII. The metrical, syntactical and semantic solutions adopted by different translators over a span of fifteen years will be analysed in an attempt to establish whether and to which extent intracultural and intertextual references may be effectively transferred to a different linguistic, literary and cultural context.
Food is a leitmotiv in Dickens, and in Great Expectations it appears to be the objective correlative of the moral stance of the characters. This is especially evident in the representation of Miss Havisham’s decaying banquet: in letting... more
Food is a leitmotiv in Dickens, and in Great Expectations it appears to be the objective correlative of the moral stance of the characters. This is especially evident in the representation of Miss Havisham’s decaying banquet: in letting food putrefy, Miss Havisham reduces her own body as mere flesh to feast upon, and it is only by nourishing herself on other bodies that she can satiate her appetites.
After exploring how Dickens relates the verbal and visual representation of food to the psychological and emotional depiction of his characters, this paper will focus on Miss Havisham and her banquet before concentrating on “the Joycean afterlife” of Dickens in “The Dead”.
After exploring how Dickens relates the verbal and visual representation of food to the psychological and emotional depiction of his characters, this paper will focus on Miss Havisham and her banquet before concentrating on “the Joycean afterlife” of Dickens in “The Dead”.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Between 1897 and 1925, Vernon Lee explored the concept of the genius loci (‘spirit of place’) in several travel books. An especially interesting piece of writing is her Italian manuscript Ville Romane: in Memoriam (1890?), ‘unpublished &... more
Between 1897 and 1925, Vernon Lee explored the concept of the genius loci (‘spirit of place’) in several travel books.
An especially interesting piece of writing is her Italian manuscript Ville Romane: in Memoriam (1890?), ‘unpublished &
only for curiosity’. Here, Lee claims that art must ‘live’ outside the museums, arguing that the artistic heritage should be
preserved for the delight and education of the masses. Lee’s manuscript will offer a chance to discuss her ideas on the
importance of landscape, heritage and cultural memory.
An especially interesting piece of writing is her Italian manuscript Ville Romane: in Memoriam (1890?), ‘unpublished &
only for curiosity’. Here, Lee claims that art must ‘live’ outside the museums, arguing that the artistic heritage should be
preserved for the delight and education of the masses. Lee’s manuscript will offer a chance to discuss her ideas on the
importance of landscape, heritage and cultural memory.
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On 31 Tuesday October at 5 pm Marco Canani, a Milan-based scholar of Romantic Literature, will give the John Keats Birthday Lecture at the Keats-Shelley House titled 'Keats's Italian Afterlives'
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1st December 1816: John Keats’s first poem was published. This seminar celebrates the event by reading and discussing this famed sonnet, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”, together with a choice of later verse as well as letters.... more
1st December 1816: John Keats’s first poem was published. This seminar celebrates the event by reading and discussing this famed sonnet, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”, together with a choice of later verse as well as letters. It will also assess Keats’s presence in contemporary culture, from films to exhibitions.
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Mnemosine and Lete in ancient and modern european culture
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The Peterloo Massacre has been dubbed “the bloodiest political event of the nineteenth century on English soil” (Poole 2007, 111). Its psychological, sociocultural and political reverberations reach far and wide. The approaching... more
The Peterloo Massacre has been dubbed “the bloodiest political event of the nineteenth century on English soil” (Poole 2007, 111). Its psychological, sociocultural and political reverberations reach far and wide. The approaching bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre calls for reappraisal and questioning through the (sometimes) distorting, yet revealing lens of narrative – that is, through the numerous ways in which Peterloo has been represented and retold in literature, art, on stage and on film. Writing about popular protest in 1819, John Gardner states that “Events are usually ephemeral and those present are often unclear about what actually happened. What does remain is the dominant representation of the event, the story that is put before the public and believed” (2011, 3). However, hegemonic representations tend to engender competing, counter-representations. These co-existing, parallel narratives are the focus of the “Peterloo at 200” Conference as they point to the way in which texts (literary and otherwise) interact with events, participate in their representation, and interrogate the “uncertain” facts determining their shape and significance. In this regard, these texts at once deconstruct and reconstruct the historical event, either by questioning established or hegemonic narrations, or by producing a version of the facts in and of itself, whose truthfulness might be as debatable. From this perspective, Peterloo may arguably be viewed not only as an event, but as “an effect,” to quote Slavoj Zizek, “that seems to exceed its causes” (2014, 15).
In search of complexity and counter-perspectives, the organizers of “Peterloo at 200” welcome research that interrogates unconventional Peterloo-related texts (literary, non-literary, dramatic, visual) and the resonance that Peterloo had outside English borders. We especially welcome proposals that highlight Peterloo as a cause in and of itself, and the texts it spawned as the effects that “exceed” it – texts which started from it but are irreducible to it, remediations (Bolter and Grusin 2000) of a brutal historical fact that recast it as real and imaginary, factual and fictional at once. Papers may focus on one or more of the following:
• Romantic poetry and drama
• Romantic and Victorian periodical essays
• Less canonical Victorian novels (such as Hale White’s 1887 Revolution on Tanner’s Lane)
• Court transcripts (e.g. the Samuel Bamford trial)
• Visual culture and satire (e.g. George Cruikshank)
• Philosophical writings (e.g. Jeremy Bentham)
• The European reception of Peterloo (the press, letters, essays, poems)
• Contemporary narratives (e.g. Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, 2018)
By investigating different textual typologies and narrative modes, we hope to recast Peterloo as a polysemic, meaning-making site of textual exploration.
Abstracts of 250 words should be sent to a.anselmo@univda.it, marco.canani@unimi.it, and giuseppe.albano@keats-shelley-house.org by 30 March 2019.
In search of complexity and counter-perspectives, the organizers of “Peterloo at 200” welcome research that interrogates unconventional Peterloo-related texts (literary, non-literary, dramatic, visual) and the resonance that Peterloo had outside English borders. We especially welcome proposals that highlight Peterloo as a cause in and of itself, and the texts it spawned as the effects that “exceed” it – texts which started from it but are irreducible to it, remediations (Bolter and Grusin 2000) of a brutal historical fact that recast it as real and imaginary, factual and fictional at once. Papers may focus on one or more of the following:
• Romantic poetry and drama
• Romantic and Victorian periodical essays
• Less canonical Victorian novels (such as Hale White’s 1887 Revolution on Tanner’s Lane)
• Court transcripts (e.g. the Samuel Bamford trial)
• Visual culture and satire (e.g. George Cruikshank)
• Philosophical writings (e.g. Jeremy Bentham)
• The European reception of Peterloo (the press, letters, essays, poems)
• Contemporary narratives (e.g. Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, 2018)
By investigating different textual typologies and narrative modes, we hope to recast Peterloo as a polysemic, meaning-making site of textual exploration.
Abstracts of 250 words should be sent to a.anselmo@univda.it, marco.canani@unimi.it, and giuseppe.albano@keats-shelley-house.org by 30 March 2019.
Research Interests: Print Culture, Romanticism, Victorian Studies, Film Studies, Victorian Literature, and 14 moreBritish Romanticism, Victorian cultural studies, Victorian studies (Literature), Victorian Art, English Romanticism, Victorian novel, Victorian fiction, Lord Byron, Victorian periodicals, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Victorian Literature and Culture, Romantic period literature, and Romantic English poetry
This article examines the work of British rapper Akala from the viewpoint of literary theory and literature as a social practice, discussing to what extent Shakespeare's work can inspire unprivileged audiences in meaningful new ways.... more
This article examines the work of British rapper Akala from the viewpoint of literary theory and literature as a social practice, discussing to what extent Shakespeare's work can inspire unprivileged audiences in meaningful new ways. Born Kingslee James Daley, Akala's work is rooted in his Afro-Caribbean background, drama, and the black hip-hop culture of the 1990s. Having founded his independent music label in 2003, in his breakthrough single "Shakespeare" (2006) Akala invited his audience to challenge stereotypical assumptions on hip-hop and rap, provocatively defining himself "like Shakespeare with a nigger twist". Inspired by a freestyle challenge, the pastiche "Comedy Tragedy History" (2007) further appropriates the Shakespearean legacy, dispelling canonical distinctions between high and low culture. After mapping Akala's ideas on music and poetry, this article explores his reworking of Shakespearean texts in the context of Todorov'...