ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the cultural climate prevalent in the Neapolitan Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, also called the Kingdom of Naples or the Neapolitan Kingdom, before the "Southern Question" was articulated, and in particular the southern perception of this country's backwardness and possible remedies. It reexamines the chronology of the Question, proposing the year 1848 as the critical moment in its emergence. The chapter suggests that Southerners themselves played a leading role in constructing the South as a Question. The discussion focuses on the ideas that were prevalent among intellectuals and in what one might call public opinion in the Kingdom, and on the social practices that helped to disseminate these ideas internally before 1848, and in exile afterwards. The chapter is concerned with the discourses of the broadly defined southern intelligentsia, and shall not discuss their implementation.
