Gabriele D’Annunzio and World Literature

Examines Gabriele D’Annunzio to re-evaluate cultural exchange and the political dimensions of global decadence and modernism

• First book to examine Gabriele D’Annunzio’s work from a global perspective and within World Literature paradigms
• Transnational and cross-disciplinary focus: unveils D’Annunzio’s investment in multilingualism, including dialect and translingual writing, as well as the influence of issues of mobility and migration, colonialism and politics on the global reception of his works
• Introduces a polycentric view of D’Annunzio by bringing together chapters written by scholars from 12 countries (Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, Spain, UK, US, Canada, Russia, Egypt, Argentina, Japan), whose work in many cases appears in English for the first time
• Unveils the crucial role of D’Annunzio’s translators as cultural mediators and examines translations and adaptations as politically charged practices
• Redefines D’Annunzio scholarship through a transnational lens, while also making a crucial contribution to studies of global decadence by demonstrating the role of Italian decadence in international networks of literary and artistic exchange

Gabriele D’Annunzio was an internationally renowned artist and one of the most prominent public figures in Italy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His novels and poetry stirred the enthusiasm of James Joyce and Henry James in the English-speaking world and his repute stretched far beyond – in France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Japan and South America, D’Annunzio became a pivotal node in the broad networks of decadent exchange. This volume offers an overview of the global dynamics of D’Annunzio’s work, from his engagement with multilingualism and translingual writing to the international circulation and reception of his production. Featuring chapters by international scholars, it re-evaluates D’Annunzio with a critical eye and a transnational scope and offers a global assessment of the place that Dannunzian decadence holds in the constitution of a conflicted movement – one that is profoundly cosmopolitan and yet also problematically nationalistic.