Cultura e Letteratura inglese

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Shelleys were Byron's friends;

They go to Venice and meet with Byron in 1818;

After Venice they move towards Rome on a journey.

In Este, the Shelleys lost their little daughter (state of particular prostration).

SHELLEY'S VENICE: Shelley presents a "falling" Italy and, as a consequence, the fall of Venice itself.

In "Lines written among the Euganean Hills" the poet describes past Venice as "Ocean's child and then his queen", and present Venice as a "Prey".

Similarly, in his letter written from Venice in 1818, Shelley claims that "Venice which was once a tyrant, is now the next worse thing, a slave".

However, in the first text the decay of Venice is described through the myth of the Minotaur, while in the second text Shelley has a matter-of-fact approach to the phenomenon, as he states that "[Venice] ceased to be free [...] from the moment that the oligarchy usurped the

Rights of the people". In conclusion, there is a correlation between the "queen" and the "tyrant", and between the "prey" and the "slave", considering that in both texts Shelley argues that Venice is to be blamed as the first responsible for its decay (in the letter the Venetians are described as less disgusting and vicious than the Austrians). Interesting to notice is the reference to the gondolas as "coffins"/"watery biers", both in the letter and in the poem.

Percy writes this poem, "Lines Written Upon Euganean Hills", in 1818. The poem is structured in 4 stanzas: Shelley is questioning what can sustain a man in sorrow, because he needs support while facing the deep sorrows of his life, and the stanzas offer the answers to his question.

• The poem opens with an image of life as a journey (a voyage in a dangerous sea);
• The voyage represents a dangerous type of life;
• Shelley writes how visions

saving Venice, he is the only poet who can save her from her fate through his poetry;

“Bier”: coffin, image of death.

Minos prayed to the sea god Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull as a sign of the god's favour.

Minos was to sacrifice the bull to honour Poseidon but owing to the bull's beauty he decided instead to keep him. Minos believed that the god would accept a substitute sacrifice. To punish Minos, Poseidon made Minos' wife Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull. The monstrous Minotaur was the result: the unnatural offspring of a woman and a beast.

SAMUEL ROGER’S Venice (Victorian period)

S. Rogers, Italy, A Poem, 1830 (stanza IX)

These lines refer to the arrival in Italy (the poem talks about the itinerary from the UK to Italy).

Rogers already knew Italy before visiting it in person thanks to literature, art and travel guides, which had largely described the country’s cities and their attractions in advance. In stanza IX of “Italy,

onewhole a variety of parts.

WOMEN’S TRAVEL WRITING

Early Victorian women’s approach and perception to/of Venice. Romantic legacy is very important to the Victorians, but they also try to find different ways to look at Venice (the city itself is changing).

Frances Milton Trollope (1780-1863), A Visit to Italy (1842)

• Victorian woman, traditional (wife and mother of 8 children);
• After some financial difficulties she moved with her family to the United States;
• This journey (1827), made to improve the family’s finances, did not go well;
• At that point she started writing (in her 50es) and became a writer (=34 novels; 6 travelogues; polemical articles).

Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832) = controversial work; she criticised the domestic life of the women in the States (their condition was backward compared to that of British women) and slavery*;

Belgium and Western Germany (1833) = travelogue, outcome of her journey;

Paris and the Parisians in 1835, 2 vols

(1836) letters; Vienna and the Austrians, 2 vols (1838) letters =anthropological interest in the people (e.g.,Austrians, Parisians); A Visit to Italy in 1841, 2 vols (1842) letters; Travel and Travellers. A Series of Sketches (1846).

*her son Anthony Trollope (novelist) will say in a later edition of Domestic Manners of the Americans that her approach was due to the fact that she has no knowledge of the context of the domestic sphere (she missed the broad perspective). Women’s observation have always had to come to term with the limited scope of their own approach (they were considered to be limited and they often put themselves in that position “I am just a woman”).

 Letter: sense of immediacy, authenticity, etc.

Letters have in British history of travelogues an important precedent: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 –1762). Lady Montagu was an aristocrat, and the wife of the ambassador in the Ottoman Empire. She wrote the letters about the life of the oriental

women giving some important insights into the life of women in the Islamic world. The letter from abroad sees as a model Lady Montagu's letters.

At some point, Trollope decides to write in the form of letters: "An important question when analysing a travel text is the relationship between the content and the style in which it is presented; that is, whether "the notebook/authentic journal" style provides more validity than a carefully constructed persona. The rhetorical device of apparently printing whatever was noted on the spot creates a sense of immediacy and an atmosphere of authenticity which suits the content well in many books."

Maureen Mulligan, "Women Travel Writing and the Question of Veracity", Women, Travel Writing and Truth, Clare Broom Saunders (ed.), Routledge, 2014, pp. 181-82.

Paris and the Parisians - PREFACE

"From the very beginning of reading and writing - nay from the very beginning of speaking - TRUTH, immortal TRUTH,

has been the object of ostensible worship to all who read and to all who listen; &,in the abstract, it is unquestionably held in sincere veneration by all: yet, in the detail of every daypractice, the majority of mankind often hate it, ... Preconceived notions generally take a much finerhold in the mind […]”.

People say that they pursue truth, but in reality they are not happy with it (they prefer tostick to preconceived notions);

British had quite difficult relationship with the French (rivalry);

She is saying that she wants to challenge these preconceived notions, starting from astrong statement (truth is there, people do not pay attention to it);

She will observe and report what she sees clearly;

The letter form enables her to talk about what she feels/thinks/sees freely.

First letter of Trollope (early letters of her visit to Italy);

Premise: nothing new can be said, everyone have already talked about Italy (all sorts of people);

Aims: to