Reviving The Liberal: Literature and Politics between Britain and Italy, 1821-23

The project, ‘Reviving ‘The Liberal” : Literature and Politics between Britain and Italy, 1821-23’ , is connected to the long-standing research on Anglo-Italian interrelations carried out by Interuniversity Centre for the Study of Romanticism (CISR). Specifically, it originates from the desire to make the Romantic-era periodical The Liberal: Verse and Prose from the South newly and more accessibly available to the scholarly community and the wider public. Integrating Digital Humanities and traditional scholarship with a strong investment in public engagement activities, the project promotes a richly diverse revitalization of this major document of nineteenth-century Anglo-Italian and European liberal culture. ‘The Liberal’ was the groundbreaking periodical published in London in 1822-23, but edited in Pisa and Genoa, by a group of intellectuals led by Leigh Hunt and including Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, among others. Well known among Romantic-period scholars, it deserves to be more generally familiar as a crucial document in the history of political and cultural liberalism and Anglo-Italian intercultural contacts. It is also outstandingly relevant as the place of publication of several major Romantic literary works such as Byron’s The Vision of Judgement and William Hazlitt’s ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets’ . The project originates from the realization that much of The Liberal’s full potential as a resource has remained unfulfilled because, for a long time, there has been no scholarly edition available; critical studies were either outmoded or too selective; and no comprehensive contextualizing work had been undertaken to reconstruct its position in 1820s culture in Britain and Italy. To revive and enhance this essential document soon after its bicentennial anniversary, our seminar has pooled the skills of a group of international scholars of English and British literature to provide a discussion on the origins, development and reception of the journal in light of the new online edition that may pave the way for new critical investigations. You can find the digital edition on this website: https://www.theliberal.unifi.it/ 

This is the link for those who wish to join:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IYeOqemjSkeWQhq3JxjJ_Q

Speakers: Serena Baiesi, Will Bowers, Greg Kucich, Diego Saglia, Maria Schoina, Alessia Testori

Event organized as part of the PRIN 2022 Project "Reviving The Liberal: Literature and Politics between Britain and Italy, 1821-23" (Project Code 2022M3FK9C)