Shelley and the Italian Tradition

Abstract

Shelley's interest in the Italian tradition is of singular importance in his development as a writer and thinker. Troughout his literary career, roughly from 1808 to 1822, Shelley encountered, read, studied, conceptualized, and assimilated the work of individual practitioners who, in his estimation, best represented or reflected Italian literary culture. Until March1818, when Shelley left for Italy, his interaction with the Italians was intermittent, inevitably lacking the immediacy of lived experience in Italy itself. Influenced by his early passion for Enlightenment texts and by Godwin’s classically oriented prospectus, Shelley came to the Italians in a less direct manner and allowed his growing acquaintance to embed itself in a general education which encompassed an extensive range of classical literary texts. This pattern was significantly reconfigured once, in selfexile, Shelley adopted Italy as a provisional home, and his response to Italian culture had become vibrant and all-present. At the same time his obsession with ancient Greece and Rome gained in intensity with experience of the remains of the ancient world so visible throughout his travels in Italy. As his direct knowledge increased, so Shelley was able to construct a working model of what Italian authors and artists meant to him and the world, and how they related to each other. That model was increasingly influential and was frequently revised and refined.