European Literatures in Britain, 1815-1832: Romantic Translations: Romantic Translations

Description

Studies of British Romanticism have traditionally tended to envisage it as an intensely local, indeed insular, phenomenon. Yet, just as the seemingly isolated British Isles became more and more central in international geo-political and economic contexts between the 1780s and the 1830s, so too literature and culture were characterized by an increasingly close and relevant dialogue with foreign and especially Continental European traditions, both past and contemporary. Diego Saglia casts new light on the significantly transformative impact of this dialogue on Britain during the years that saw a return to unimpeded cross-border cultural traffic after the end of the Napoleonic emergency. Focusing on modes of translation and appropriation in a variety of literary and cultural forms, this book reconsiders the notion of the supposed intrinsic insularity of Britain through the lens of new key questions about the national, international and transnational features of Romantic-period literature and culture.

Diego Saglia is Professor of English Literature at the Universita degli Studi, Parma. He is the author of Poetic Castles in Spain: British Romanticism and Figurations of Iberia (2000) and co-editor of British Romanticism and Italian Literature: Translating, Reviewing, Rewriting (with Laura Bandiera, 2005) and Byron and Italy (with Alan Rawes, 2017), as well as numerous critical essays in international journals.

'His book must be understood as an invitation to approach the big questions again, refreshed and renewed. This is the sort of intelligent challenge Romanticists and Romanticism needs. His excellent book is accommodating yet partial, compendious yet incomplete. It is an incitement to rethink Romanticism and its reach.' Bysshe Inigo Coffey, The Wordsworth Circle