ABSTRACT
This chapter compares two poetic interventions in the political discourse of post-1815 Europe: Ugo Foscolos Dei sepolcri and Lord Byrons The Prophecy of Dante. The poems present interconnected views of Italys political situation as a divided country under despotic and foreign rule, whose resurgence they portray as imminent and, at the same time, profoundly doubtful. Both Foscolo and Byron chose to articulate their vision of Italys uncertain yet fast-approaching future in the form of ancient prophecies pronounced by visionary figures of the classical and Western traditions. The chapter follows German historian Reinhart Koselleck arguement, that in the final decades of the eighteenth century a new open-ended temporal structure emerged, which made it impossible to treat forthcoming events as if they were the projections of past occurrences. Both Byrons and Foscolos prophecies are tinged with doubt, as the once stable relationship linking past, present and future comes under pressure from revolutionary events and concurrent developments in the philosophy of history.
