Roman Holidays: American Writers and Artists in Nineteenth-century Italy

Robert K. Martin (Curatore)

Leland S. Person (Curatore)

University of Iowa Press, 2002

Featuring essays by 12 prominent American literature scholars, this text explores the tradition of American travel to Italy and makes a significant contribution to the understanding of 19th-century American encounters with Italian culture and, more specifically, with Rome. The increase in American travel to Italy during the 19th century was partly a product of improved conditions of travel. As suggested in the title, Italy served 19th-century writers and artists as a kind of laboratory site for encountering Others and ""other"" kinds of experience. No doubt Italy offered a place of holiday - a momentary escape from the familiar - but the journey to Rome, a place urging upon the visitor a new and more complex sense of history, also forced a re-examination of oneself and one's identity. Writers and artists found their religious, political and sexual assumptions challenged.

• Curatore: Robert K. Martin, Leland S. Person
• Editore: University of Iowa Press
• Anno: 2002
• Rilegatura: Hardback
• Pagine: 264 p.
• Peso: 529 gr.
• EAN: 9780877457824

Testo in English