Victorian novelist George Gissing (1857-1903) was a devotee of ancient Roman culture and visited Italy three times between 1888 and 1897. In spite of this admiration, his relationship with Italy was problematic, largely due to personal mishaps. In light of these conflicting views, my essay considers Gissing’s portrayals of mostly Southern Italian locations through his fiction, letters, and travelogues. The focus lies here not so much on the narrator but on the narrated space, with Bertrand Westphal’s notion of “geocriticism” at its theoretical core. Far from being a utopian haven, Gissing’s Italy emerges as a trans-cultural meeting point where the perception of an “interiorised place” can reshape reality, alter horizons, and redefine established values.
La Trobe University, Australia - ORCID: 0000-0002-2448-3743
Titolo del capitolo
Italy and George Gissing: A Geocritical Approach
Autori
Luigi Gussago
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-597-4.10
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2022
Copyright
© 2022 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Rewriting and Rereading the XIX and XX-Century Canons
Sottotitolo del libro
Offerings for Annamaria Pagliaro
Curatori
Samuele Grassi, Brian Zuccala
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2022
Copyright
© 2022 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-597-4
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-597-4
eISBN (xml)
978-88-5518-598-1
Collana
Biblioteca di Studi di Filologia Moderna
e-ISSN della collana
2420-8361