The Gothic in Nineteenth-Century Italy
Author(s)
Date Issued
2020
Type
bookPart
Start Page
303
End Page
327
ISBN
9781108472715
Abstract
Was there an indigenous Gothic in nineteenth-century Italy, a local reworking of English (and perhaps also Continental) forms and models – a Gothic ‘under the sun’, so to speak? The chapter addresses this much-debated issue by making a case for the presence of clear Gothic motifs and structures in several Italian novels, from Alessandro Manzoni’s I promessi sposi (1827) [the Bethroted] (particularly in its earliest version, Fermo e Lucia, c.1821-23) to Carlo Lorenzini (aka Collodi)’s Le avventure di Pinocchio (1883) [the adventures of Pinocchio]. The chapter discusses the contribution of the so-called ‘Scapigliati’ authors to the Italian Gothic and offers a survey of later writers from the verista and naturalista literary schools, including Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana. Approaching the end of the century, Italian realist writers seem to veer with gusto towards the supernatural. Therefore the chapter closes with looking at the anti-rationalist and anti-scientific discourses the flourished at the close of the century and such hermeneutical modalities as spiritualism, mesmerism, and occultism that became increasingly fashionable in the popular press. Vampire literature and the Italian legacy of German and English Gothic(s) are also addressed, with references, among others, to Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi and the national novelists of the first half of the century.
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