ABSTRACT
The 'Italianized' Romantics relates to Italy in different ways, which have been charted. Upon closer scrutiny, however, the Romantic Anglo-Italians' diverse acculturating processes converge in terms of their methods and logistics. A case in point is that Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley use natural metaphors and figures of filiation to ground their relationship to Italy conceptually. Interestingly, the questions and concerns which underpinned the configuration of the Anglo-Italian bear on many of these postmodernist issues. Bound with the notion of representation, metaphors, as cultural theory informs us, create new angles on the world. Seen in its entirety, the metaphor of the Anglo-Italian not only creates a new code of intercultural perception but is methodically involved in the production of a version of Englishness, and one of Italianness, through their representation. It exemplifies another intriguing mosaic of English and Italian qualities, duly configured at a time when British aesthetics and politics were in need of redefinition or redemption.
