The Invention of Sardinia. The Idea of Sardinia in Historical and Travel Writing
BVI 97
Sandro CORSO
The Invention of Sardinia. The Idea of Sardinia in Historical and Travel Writing
Biblioteca del Viaggio in Italia «Studi»
pp. 248, tavole, illustrazioni
ISBN 978-88-7760-097-4
29.00 €
As a provisional definition, identity appears to be the result of a complex interaction between the inner characteristics of a person and the more or less stereotyped image others have of him/her. The two perceived identities may be strikingly different. This work investigates the way the identity of Sardinia and its inhabitants was perceived in travel literature – and more particularly to what extent travel writing contributed to shape identity, both of the visited place and of its inhabitants. It aims at assessing whether national identities are the result of an endogenous process, or rather influenced by exogenous elaborations. The example of Sardinia is telltale in this respect. Three moments can be singled out in the restitution of its identity in travel narratives. Firstly, the presentation of the island as an unknown place. Although the island had been very well known to Mediterranean travellers since the dawn of history (documentary evidence shows the island was visited regularly as early as three thousand years ago) it was commonly defined, in the rest of Europe, as an unknown or forgotten land till the first quarter of the twentieth century. Secondly (and consequently), the announcement of its discovery. Most European travellers refer to a sense of discovering Sardinia, which is considered not only the result of personal experience, but a discovery which provides a justification for revealing a terra incognita to the general reading public. Thirdly, the invention of a credible image of the island, through the intermediate steps of understanding its essence and proposing an original identity. When D. H. Lawrence wrote that Sardinia had «no history, no date, no race, no offering», he was drawing from a consolidated image of the island as an unknown land rather than on its millenary history. The Nobel laureate Grazia Deledda challenged this idea in the first quarter of the twentieth century by countering the codes elaborated in the island – namely the language code, the common law and the rustic life and passions – to the civilized way of life of industrialized European societies.SOMMARIO: Introduction: The corpus: general criteria - Defining travel - Understanding travel in literature - Travel between modernity and post-modernity - Travel in literature: the quest for identity - Questions of method - I. How Sardinia became “unknown” to Europe (Roman times to the early 17th century): Early maps of Sardinia - Two 17th century cartographers - II. The discovery of Sardinia: nineteenth century travelers: British travellers - German travellers - French travellers - Italian travellers - III. Primitivism and the (re)invention of Sardinia: travellers in the first half of the 20th century : Grazia Deledda: the (re)invention of the Sardinian identity from the inside - D. H. Lawrence, E. Vittorini, E. Jünger: The European (re)invention of the Sardinian identity from the outside - Conclusions - Notes - Bibliography