The View From Vesuvius

Italian Culture and the Southern Question

By: Nelson J. Moe

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Paperback | 17 May 2006 | Edition Number 1

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368 Pages

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22.78 x 15.32 x 2.26

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The vexed relationship between the two parts of Italy, often referred to as the Southern Question, has shaped that nation's political, social, and cultural life throughout the twentieth century. But how did southern Italy become "the south," a place and people seen as different from and inferior to the rest of the nation? Writing at the rich juncture of literature, history, and cultural theory, Nelson Moe explores how Italy's Mezzogiorno became both backward and picturesque, an alternately troubling and fascinating borderland between Europe and its others. This finely crafted book shows that the Southern Question is far from just an Italian issue, for its origins are deeply connected to the formation of European cultural identity between the mid-eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries.

Moe examines an exciting range of unfamiliar texts and visual representations including travel writing, political discourse, literary texts, and etchings to illuminate the imaginative geography that shaped the divide between north and south. His narrative moves from a broad examination of the representation of the south in European culture to close readings of the literary works of Leopardi and Giovanni Verga. This groundbreaking investigation into the origins of the modern vision of the Mezzogiorno is made all the more urgent by the emergence of separatism in Italy in the 1990s.

Industry Reviews

"Of interest to anyone studying the formation of modern states and national identities." - John Davis, American Historical Review "This may well be the most complete and fascinating historical investigation of the myths and stereotypes through which European elites have observed and judged the south of Italy in the modern era." - Piero Bevilacqua, University of Rome "A tour de force exploration of how the idea of the south of Italy - the Southern question - developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe and Italy. Nelson Moe's book is a provocative reassessment of an old question, newly conceived and dictated by larger ideological and political needs that extend far beyond the geographic borders of the Italian nation." - Judge, Scaglione Publication Award, Italian Literary Series"

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Non-Fiction History Regional & National History European History History Theory & Methods Historiography Society & Culture Cultural Studies Earliest Times to Present Day 20th Century History from 1900 to 2000 Earth Sciences, Geography, Environment, Planning Geography

Human Geography Political Geography Specific Events & Topics in History Social & Cultural History

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: How Did Southern Italy Become "the South"?	p. 1
Imagining the South, c. 1750-1850
Italy as Europe's South	p. 13
"L'Italie, c'est rien": Foreign Views of Italy	p. 14
"The Abomination of All Nations": Italian Views of Italy	p. 19
The Empire of Climate	p. 23
Southern Man and Northern Man in Bonstetten and Gioia	p. 27
The Triumph of the North in Leopardi's Discorso	p. 31
"L'Europe finit a Naples": Representations of the Mezzogiorno in the Century before Unification	p. 37
What Was Different about Southern Italy?	p. 38
Casanova in a Paradise Inhabited by Devils	p. 46
The Geography of Textual Production	p. 52
Travelers at the End of Europe	p. 55
Southerners and the Backward South	p. 76
Representing the South in the Risorgimento, c. 1825-1861
The North Looks South, 1825-1848	p. 85
"Italy Ends at the Garigliano"	p. 87
A View from Milan: The Picturesque South in Cosmorama pittorico	p. 92
A Different View from Milan: Carlo Cattaneo	p. 102
The Moral Geography of a Moderate: The South in Vincenzo Gioberti's Primato	p. 112
The View from Vesuvius: Leopardi's "La ginestra"	p. 120
Of Bourbons and Barbarism, 1848-1860	p. 126
Europe and Italy, North and South	p. 127
Gladstone and the Negation of God	p. 131
"Italy Ends at the Garigliano" (Revisited)	p. 139
The South as Africa	p. 143
A Poetic and Picturesque World	p. 153
"This Is Not Italy!": Ruling and Representing the South, 1860-1861	p. 156
The Neapolitans Disappoint the Piedmontese	p. 161
Meeting the Barbarians	p. 164
Two Moral Maps	p. 170
The Wound, the Doctor, the Nation	p. 172
The South's First Day in Parliament	p. 176
The Supreme Argument of Force	p. 179
Representing the South in Postunification Italy, c. 1870-1885
Terra Vergine: Picturing the South in Illustrazione italiana	p. 187
Politics, Positivism, and Pessimism, c. 1874	p. 189
The Geography of Textual Production in Postunification Italy	p. 194
The Birth of a Magazine: Picturing the Nation in Illustrazione italiana	p. 197
The Squalid South in Nuova illustrazione universale	p. 207
The Picturesque South in Illustrazione italiana	p. 211
The Emergence of the Southern Question in Pasquale Villari and Leopoldo Franchetti	p. 224
The Southern Question in Villari's Southern Letters	p. 225
Franchetti's Sicilian Nightmare	p. 236
The Geographical Poetics of Giovanni Verga	p. 250
A Sicilian Writer in Milan	p. 252
Picturing Sicily in Eva	p. 253
Preamble to a Geographical Poetics: "Nedda"	p. 257
"One Helluva Fuss": Milanse Responses to "Nedda"	p. 261
A Singular Interest: "Stories of the Castle of Trezza"	p. 266
The Problem with "Padron 'Ntoni"	p. 271
A Pretty Little Picture: "Fantasticheria"	p. 275
The Antipicturesque in "Rosso Malpelo"	p. 277
The Hybridity of Vita dei campi and I Malavoglia	p. 280
The Negation of the Sea in Novelle rusticane	p. 286
The Return of the Picturesque in "Across the Sea" and Cavalleria rusticana	p. 289
Conclusion: What the South Enables Us to Say	p. 297
Bibliography	p. 301
Index	p. 337
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

The View From Vesuvius

Italian Culture and the Southern Question

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

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How to return your order

Defective items

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