Mary Shelley in Italy: Reading Dante and the Creation of an Anglo-Italian Identity

Abstract

This article analyses Mary Shelley’s textual and critical approach to Dante. It focuses on her sources in Mme de Staël’s, J.C.L. Simonde de Sismondi’s, August Schlegel’s and Henry Francis Cary’s critical readings of Dante. By analysing Mary Shelley’s use of Dante in Rambles, it will be shown that Mary Shelley became a mediator and introduced contemporary Italian political readings of his work and anticipated the Victorian interest in Dante’s Vita Nuova.