ABSTRACT
The struggle for the unification of Italy seemed to be a crisis in which modern heroes might be found: the rise and fall of a new Roman Republic only intensified a sense that the epic theme that was hard to conceptualise in contemporary England might be found in European nation-building. It was only long after the unification of Italy had been achieved that the narrative of the Risorgimento could be confidently reframed and classicised as an epic period in history with a great hero. Given the prominence of Latin and Greek in Victorian education and political discourse, it is not surprising that classical analogies are pervasive in Victorian representations of the Risorgimento. The Victorian literary response to the Risorgimento reflects the existence of a widespread English interest in Italian culture and the struggle for nationhood. In Victorian travel writing, Rome is often associated with confusion and disenchantment, dirt and decay.
