Byron and Italy [Paperback]

Winner of the Elma Dangerfield Prize 2018

Byron in Italy  Venetian debauchery, Roman sight-seeing, revolution, horse-riding and swimming, sword-brandishing and pistol-shooting, the poets last attachment  forms part of the fabric of Romantic mythology. Yet Byrons time in Italy was crucial to his development as a writer, to Italys sense of itself as a nation, to Europes perceptions of national identity and to the evolution of Romanticism across Europe. In this volume, Byron scholars from Britain, Europe and beyond re-assess the topic of Byron and Italy in all its richness and complexity. They consider Byrons relationship to Italian literature, people, geography, art, religion and politics, and discuss his navigations between British and Italian identities.

Alan Rawes is Senior Lecturer in Romanticism at the University of Manchester

Diego Saglia is Professor of English Literature at the University of Parma

Byron in Italy  Venetian debauchery, Roman sightseeing, revolutionary politics in Ravenna, horse riding, swimming, sword-brandishing, pistol shooting, and the poets last attachment  forms part of the fabric of Romantic mythology. Yet Byrons time in Italy was crucial to his development as a writer, to Italys sense of itself as a unified nation, to Europes perceptions of national identity and to the evolution of Romanticism both in Britain and on the Continent.

It was also in Italy that Byron honed the dazzling protean ability to reinvent himself, as both poet and cultural icon, which continues to speak directly to readers today. As history again forces Britain to rethink its relationship with the rest of Europe  and Europe to rethink the British  this volume brings together Byron scholars from the UK, Europe and the US to re-assess the topic of Byron and Italy in all its inter-natil³,