Convegno: Dante in the Nineteenth Century

Dante in the Nineteenth Century

6-8 September, 2012

Institute of English Studies, University of London, Senate House

Nicholas Havely(Emeritus Professor English and Related Literature, University of York, UK)
Fabio Camilletti (Asst Professor of Italian, University of Warwick, UK)
Alison Milbank (Associate Professor, Theology & Religious Studies, Nottingham University, UK)
Matthew Reynolds (The Times Lecturer in English, St Anne’s Oxford, UK)
Ralph Pite (Professor of English, and Director of the Centre for Romantic Studies, Bristol University

As a number of historians have pointed out, the concept of the 'Renaissance' as a way of describing Italy from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries is essentially a nineteenth century idea. We look at medieval and early modern Italy through nineteenth-century spectacles. Indeed, the anglophone cult of Dante – in commentaries, translations, illustrations, and a host of literary references – belongs to this nineteenth century matrix. This conference brings together literary critics (both English and Italian), historians, and art historians with scholars from similar disciplines specializing in the nineteenth century, centring our theme on Florence – for many Victorians the epitome of Italian culture and tradition.– both through the eyes of the historians and critics who interpreted it, and also through the eyes of the Anglo-American community that lived there.

London has been chosen for our conference because its central theme is the nineteenth century re-discovery of Dante, and consequently of Florence, in the English speaking world.