Going South: Mary Shelley’s representation of Italy in "Rambles in Germany and Italy"

Abstract

This article presents Mary Shelley’s Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 1843 as a key text for the perception of Italy in Britain in the nineteenth century. In the age of the Grand Tour, travellers from across Europe visited Italy for reasons of art, culture, leisure, religion and health. Il Bel Paese was regarded by foreign travellers as the emblem of the South and travel writing of the period drew on established patterns of tropes and metaphors to represent the Italian peninsula. This article shows that, in Rambles, Mary Shelley got rid of well-established prejudices related to British colonial sense of superiority and engaged in an authentic, often extremely personal, dialogue with the country and its inhabitants.