Irish Literature in Italy in the Era of the World Wars, 1st ed. 2022 New Directions in Irish and Irish American Literature Series

This book addresses both the dissemination and increased understanding of the specificity of Irish literature in Italy during the first half of the twentieth century. This period was a crucial time of nation-building for both countries. Antonio Bibbò illustrates the various images of Ireland that circulated in Italy, focusing on political and cultural discourses and examines the laborious formation of an Irish literary canon in Italy. The center of this analysis relies on books and articles on Irish politics, culture, and literature produced in Italy, including pamplets, anthologies, literary histories, and propaganda; translations of texts by Irish writers; and archival material produced by writers, publishers, and cultural and political institutions. Bibbò argues that the construction of different and often conflicting ideas of Ireland in Italy as well as the wavering understanding of the distinctiveness of Irish culture, substantially affected the Italian responses to Irish writers and their presence within the Italian publishing field. This book contributes to the discussion on transnational aspects of canon formation, reception studies, and Italian cultural studies.

Introduction – Imagining Ireland in Italy.- 2. Early irlandesisti.- 3. False Start: Carlo Linati and the Irish.- 4: Ireland in Fascist Italy.- 5. We are all Irish in the eyes of Mussolini: Irish theater in the war years.- 6. Conclusion.

Antonio Bibbò is Lecturer in English and Translation at the University of Trento, Italy. He has translated works by Woolf, Defoe, Wilde and Pound.