Their other side : six American women and the lure of Italy / Helen Barolini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barolini, Helen, 1925-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--Women authors--Italian influences.

American literature.

Women authors, American--Homes and haunts--Italy.

Women authors, American.

Women authors, American--19th century--Biography.

Women authors, American--20th century--Biography.

Italy--In literature.

Italy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (340 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Fordham University Press, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

“Our lives are Swiss,” Emily Dickinson wrote in 1859, “So still—so cool.” But over the Alps, “Italy stands the other side.” For Dickinson, as for many other writers and artists, Italy has been the land of light, a seductive source of invention, enchantment, and freedom. So it was for Helen Barolini, who, as a student in Rome after World War II, wrote her first poetry and gave birth to her own creative life, reinvigorating her mother tongue. In this book, Barolini celebrates the lives of other women whose imaginations succumbed to the lure of Italy. Here Barolini profiles six gifted women transformed by Italy’s mythic appeal. Unlike Barolini herself, they were not daughters of the great Italian diaspora. Rather, they were drawn to an idea of “Italy” and its gifts—in whose welcome a new self could be created. Or discovered. Emily Dickinson traveled to Italy only in the imaginative genius of her verse. Margaret Fuller struggled alongside her Italian lover in the political revolutions that gave birth to the Italian Republic, while the novelist and short-story writer Constance Fennimore Woolson found her home in Venice and Florence. Here, too, is the flamboyant artist Mabel Dodge Luhan, entertaining at her villa near Florence; and Marguerite Chapin of Connecticut, who married an Italian prince and in Rome founded the premier literary review of the mid-century, Botteghe Oscure. Finally, here is Iris Cutting Origo, the Anglo-American heiress who, with her Italian nobleman husband, built a Tuscan estate, where she wrote acclaimed biographies—and created a refuge from Mussolini’s fascism. Linking these lives, Barolini shows, is the transforming catalyst of change in a new land. Their Other Side is a wise, warm, and deeply felt literary journey that brilliantly captures the enduring effects of Italy as a place, a culture, and an experience.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Margaret Fuller, 1810–1850

Emily Dickinson, 1830–1886

Constance Fenimore Woolson, 1840–1894

Mabel Dodge Luhan, 1870–1962

Marguerite Caetani, 1880–1963

Iris Origo, 1902–1988

Afterword

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786612698682

9780823247318

0823247317

9781282698680

1282698680

9780823238682

0823238687

9780823226313

082322631X

9781429479028

1429479027

OCLC:

727645676