<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p><xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_ausp-2016-0007_ref_004_w2aab2b8c24b1b7b1ab1ab4Aa">Marina Fiorato’s <italic>The Glassblower of Murano</italic> (2008)</xref> tells the story of Eleonora, a young woman who travels to Venice in search of her genealogical past and existential roots. Coming from London, Eleonora incarnates a “modern” outlook on what she assumes to be the timeless life and culture of Venice. At one point in the novel, admiring the old houses on the Canal Grande, Eleonora is “on fire with enthusiasm for this culture where the houses and the people kept their genetic essence so pure for millennia that they look the same now as in the Renaissance” (2008, 15). This discourse of pure origins and unbroken continuities is a fascinating fantasizing on characteristics that extend from the urban territory to the people who inhabit it. Within narratives centred on this notion, Italian culture, perceived as holding a privileged relation with history and the past, is often contrasted with the displacement and rootlessness that seem to characterize the modern places and people of England and North America. Through a discussion of two Anglo-American popular novels set in Italy, and several relocation narratives, this paper proposes an exploration of the notion according to which history is the force cementing the identities of societies perceived as less modern and frozen in a timeless dimension. From a point in time when the dialectics of history have been allegedly transcended, Anglo-American popular narratives observe Italy as a timeless, pre-modern other.</p></abstract>

Marina Fiorato’s The Glassblower of Murano (2008) tells the story of Eleonora, a young woman who travels to Venice in search of her genealogical past and existential roots. Coming from London, Eleonora incarnates a “modern” outlook on what she assumes to be the timeless life and culture of Venice. At one point in the novel, admiring the old houses on the Canal Grande, Eleonora is “on fire with enthusiasm for this culture where the houses and the people kept their genetic essence so pure for millennia that they look the same now as in the Renaissance” (2008, 15). This discourse of pure origins and unbroken continuities is a fascinating fantasizing on characteristics that extend from the urban territory to the people who inhabit it. Within narratives centred on this notion, Italian culture, perceived as holding a privileged relation with history and the past, is often contrasted with the displacement and rootlessness that seem to characterize the modern places and people of England and North America. Through a discussion of two Anglo-American popular novels set in Italy, and several relocation narratives, this paper proposes an exploration of the notion according to which history is the force cementing the identities of societies perceived as less modern and frozen in a timeless dimension. From a point in time when the dialectics of history have been allegedly transcended, Anglo-American popular narratives observe Italy as a timeless, pre-modern other.

The Genetic Essence of Houses and People: History as Idealization and Appropriation of an Imagined Timelessness

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Marina Fiorato’s The Glassblower of Murano (2008) tells the story of Eleonora, a young woman who travels to Venice in search of her genealogical past and...

The Genetic Essence of Houses and People: History as Idealization and Appropriation of an Imagined Timelessness

Published Online: Dec 28, 2016

Page range: 99 - 116

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ausp-2016-0007

Keywords
taxonomy of cultures, Italy, temporal difference, tradition/modernity, popular literature

© 2016 Francesca Pierini, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Genetic Essence of Houses and People: History as Idealization and Appropriation of an Imagined Timelessness

Published Online: Dec 28, 2016

Page range: 99 - 116

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ausp-2016-0007

Keywordstaxonomy of cultures, Italy, temporal difference, tradition/modernity, popular literature

© 2016 Francesca Pierini, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
taxonomy of cultures, Italy, temporal difference, tradition/modernity, popular literature