Dickens and the Italians in 'Pictures from Italy'

This work explores Dickens’s perception of Italy as it appears in the travel book __Pictures from Italy__. Corpus methodologies, alongside the notion of intersectionality, display the writer’s multi-faceted interpretation of the Italians and his efforts to highlight their multidimensionality and heterogeneity. The book debates that __Pictures from Italy__ departs from conventions – it investigates the function of travel in the construction of Italian identity and discusses Dickens’s relationship with Italy. Corpus linguistics methodologies analyse the language of the book and shed newlight on the relationship between body language and culture. Preface 6 Acknowledgements 8 Contents 9 Chapter 1: Introduction 11 References 15 Chapter 2: The Lure of Italy 16 2.1 The British and Italy 17 2.2 Italy in Travel Writing 20 2.3 The Cumbersome Italians 24 References 27 Chapter 3: Transcultural Views 30 3.1 Transnational Connections: Dickens and Mazzini 31 3.2 Letters from Italy 34 3.3 Italian Views 46 3.4 Food in Italy 51 3.5 Italian Words in Context: Dickens Reads Manzoni 53 3.6 Back to Italy 56 References 63 Chapter 4: Italy Seen from New Angles 65 4.1 Pictures from Italy and Travel Writing 66 4.2 New Forms of Shaping Italy 67 4.3 Visual Italy 69 4.4 Relating the Unfamiliar to the Familiar: Similes in Picture from Italy 71 4.5 Italy in Light and Colour 71 4.6 A Priest-Ridden Country 75 References 82 Chapter 5: The Italians in Pictures from Italy 85 5.1 Pictures from Italy: A Corpus Linguistics Analysis 86 5.2 Dickens and the Italians 87 5.3 Words as Shapers of Culture 93 5.4 Featuring ‘the Other’ 99 5.5 Italian Bodies 100 References 109 Chapter 6: Conclusions 111 Index 114 This work explores Dickens’s perception of Italy as it appears in the travel book Pictures from Italy. Corpus methodologies, alongside the notion of intersectionality, display the writer’s multi-faceted interpretation of the Italians and his efforts to highlight their multidimensionality and heterogeneity. The book debates that Pictures from Italy departs from conventions – it investigates the function of travel in the construction of Italian identity and discusses Dickens’s relationship with Italy. Corpus linguistics methodologies analyse the language of the book and shed new light on the relationship between body language and culture. Front Matter ....Pages i-xii Introduction (Germana Cubeta)....Pages 1-5 The Lure of Italy (Germana Cubeta)....Pages 7-20 Transcultural Views (Germana Cubeta)....Pages 21-55 Italy Seen from New Angles (Germana Cubeta)....Pages 57-76 The Italians in Pictures from Italy (Germana Cubeta)....Pages 77-102 Conclusions (Germana Cubeta)....Pages 103-105 Back Matter ....Pages 107-110