English representations of Italians in the Risorgimento period : their use in the construction of nationality and masculinity

This study examines the range of representations of Italians at the period whenthey were striving for their own nationhood, and interrogates such images toillustrate how the middle-class English reader thus constructed his own nationalityand masculinity. Aspects of the relationship between the two countries at thisperiod have been examined by other writers, or more general surveys have beencarried out, but my specific focus enables links to be made between and acrosspreviously separated fields. There is a development visible within the thirty yearperiod, as the events of the Risorgimento foregrounded Italians, and they seemedto vie with the English, they were increasingly represented in a more negative wayand cultural authority was accorded to other nations.Taking masculinity and nationality as mutually constitutive and relational, I usetheory from the fields of cultural theory, gender studies and sociology to informmy argument. I discuss representations, both verbal and visual, from two of thelarge circulation weekly publications appellating my target reader, Punch and theIllustrated London Neii's. I also examine the messages conveyed byintertextuality in a reader's experience, and refer to novels, travel writings, andpaintings in which Italians play a significant part.The centrality of Victorian uses of history leads me to look initially at depictionsof the Roman and Renaissance past of Italians. The cultural capital attributed toItalian pasts had to be contained and managed, as did Italian excellence in musicand painting. The pastoral setting in which Italians were so often located answersseveral English needs, including the positioning of Italians as primitive -a themealso influential in their frequent representation as dirty, disreputable or amoral.Against this background, the representation of two key figures, Mazzini andGaribaldi, can be seen to summarise the English construction of Italians.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral (Level 8)

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• McAllister, A

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1389675

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1389675