Translation, biography, opera, film and literary criticism : Byron and Italy after 1870

The essays deals with the fortunes of Lord Byron''s works in Italy afer it became a unified country in 1870, thus complementing the preceding essay in the volume, on Byron''s reception in Italy from 1810 to 1870. The in-depth critical and bibliographical survey carried out in the essay shows that, with the exception of the uninterrupted flow of translations from Byron''s works, the decades after 1870 manifested a novel and continuing interest in the Italian places where Byron had lived, in his life, and in the people - the women, especially - he had met in Italy, while the waning of Byronism as a literary and cultural phenomenon was counterbalanced by the rise of modern literary criticism of the poet''s works. The essay also emphasises that, although Lord Byron was famous everywhere in Europe, the typical Byronic intertwining of biography and poetry could not help giving the Italian reception of Byron''s works a particular colour. Even though Byron''s literary reputation suffered, in Italy as elsewhere, when sociological criteria in judging works of art were superseded by purely aesthetic ones, Lord Byron has never stopped being remembered and appreciated in Italy, as a man, a mythical figure and a poet.