Abstract
L'Esule! – Una di quelle parole, che come un accordo di terza minore, come una ricordanza degli anni d'infanzia, non possono suonarti all'orecchio senza spruzzarti l'anima di tristezza.
For almost the whole of the nineteenth century, the British government offered complete and unrestricted political asylum to all refugees. A uniquely tolerant approach to free immigration and unregulated asylum made London during the nineteenth century the great centre for political exiles from across Europe . These political refugees represented a plurality of political and religious beliefs, yet they shared the peculiar experience of exile in Britain . The Italian liberal exiles resident in Britain throughout the mid-nineteenth century, however, enjoyed a particularly privileged place within British sympathies. My thesis aims to provide a study of the image of Italian liberal exiles in Britain during the period c.1840-1860. The aim is to examine how these individuals created a national identity for the newly emerging Italian nation, invoking the categories of self and nation, and how visions of Italy were used in the construction of British liberal culture.
G. Mazzini, ‘ L'Esule , Poema di Pietro Giannone', dall' Indicatore Livornese ' no. 46, in Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini , Letteratura, vol. 1., Milano, 1862, pp. 145-153.
Outline
1. Historiographical Review
This chapter will provide an historiographical overview of works which deal with one or other aspect of the relationship between Britain and Italy during the mid-Victorian period. The structure will comprise of a chronological overview of material. An attempt will be made to highlight the way in which the cultural and intellectual exchange which occurred between Britain and Italy throughout the nineteenth century found keen expression in a variety of literary voices, and the extent to which the historiography to date has addressed the different registers they adopted, and in turn highlight some of the methodological issues this poses for the thesis.
2.'Self and Nation; British Liberal Culture and rise of ‘ The Italian Question'
Research in the field of nineteenth-century Anglo-Italian studies has traditionally focused on the rich cultural exchange between the two countries. In The Romance of Italy and the English Political Imagination Maura O'Connor has attempted to present a picture of the way in which a fascination with Italianate culture shaped English ‘political passions' and ‘helped to recast the political landscape from ‘the early nineteenth century through the 1860s', yet here, as is the case across the spectrum of related publications, little analysis of the way in which comment on the Italian Question may be related to the broader themes of intellectual history of the period, is offered. The first chapter therefore analyses three texts which address the Italian Question in detail and seeks to provide a background for later discussion of the image of the exiles, by introducing these constellations of British debate on ‘the Italian Question'.
4. ‘Gentlemen Revolutionaries of the most respectable kind?' A Biographical introduction to Italian Liberal Exiles in Britain , c. 1840-1860
This chapter will introduce key figures of the study, and will provide a biographical sketch of figures including Giuseppe Mazzini, Giovanni and Agostino Ruffini, Antonio Panizzi and Antonio Gallenga. The aim is to show the influence of each of these figures in shaping British attitudes toward Italian exiles and the Risorgimento, with emphasis on their individual efforts to confront or manipulate existing stereotypical notions of Italian national character.
3.Case Study : Giuseppe Mazzini, exile par excellence?
This chapter examines the close relationship between Giuseppe Mazzini and the family of William Henry Ashurst, and Thomas and Jane Carlyle. The intention is examine the image which emerges of Mazzini from sources which document his friendship with the Ashursts and Carlyles. This chapter will include analysis of correspondence, paintings and archival material.
4.A Literary Type? Exile and National Identity in fictional sources
This chapter draws on a rich historical resource, the cache of novels which appeared in the late 1850s and in the decade before the unification of Italy was complete whose backdrop was that of Italian nationalism. These sources will be analysed in order to explore the reading public's perception of exiles and the politics of the Risorgimento. Largely to be based on the novels of Giovanni Ruffini, this chapter may also include minor ‘trash' novels written by British authors (predominantly British women). This will allow for an analysis of more popular portrayals of Anglo-Italian relations, which I argue, may indicate that the way in which ‘high' and ‘popular' culture addressed Italian nationalism were intricately related.
5.Conclusions
Maura O'Connor, The Romance of Italy and the English Political Imagination , London , 1998.
