| dc.description.abstract | This essay reflects on Anglo-American literary representations of Italian culture from
the perspective of postcolonial theory. Throughout history, many national and cultural
entities have defined themselves in relation to foreign and “exotic” civilizations; this
equally applies to “the exotic within Europe.” Through a discussion of the works of
writers as various as E.M. Forster (The Story of a Panic, 1903), Frances Mayes (Under the
Tuscan Sun, 1997), and Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love, 2006), the essay describes a
tradition that celebrates Italy as an authentic cultural experience and at the same time
“orientalises” such a tradition by depicting it as a destabilizing threat and challenge to the
“rational mind,” allegedly represented by Anglo-American culture. The essay attempts to
disclose the degree of “imagined identity” that emerges from an on-going productive
dialogue with the “other within oneself.” It should not be possible to read nineteenth-century British literature without remembering
that imperialism, understood as England’s social mission, was a crucial part of the cultural
representation of England to the English. The role of literature in the production of cultural
representation should not be ignored. These two obvious ‘facts’ continue to be disregarded
in the reading of nineteenth-century British literature. This itself attests to the continuing
process of the imperialist project, displaced and dispersed into more modern forms.1 | en_US |
