Introduction

This volume is the result of a university research project entitled ‘Translation and reception of Alessandro Manzoni in nineteenth-century England’ funded by the University of Bari. It pertains to the broad and fertile field of critical studies concerning the interaction between English and Italian letters and cultures. Its focal point is the analysis of the complex relations surrounding the translation and reception of Alessandro Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi (1827) in England and a few years later in America, in the assumption that translation is central and essential to intercultural relations, as Translation Studies has shown. The critical and theoretical perspective of this study rests on the most recent developments and final convergence of Translation Studies and Cultural Studies, and considers translation as a privileged locus of exchange and negotiation of values and ideologies. Availing themselves of such key trends in translation research as Itamar Even-Zohar’s and Gideon Toury’s ‘polysystem’ theory, and of the fundamental contributions of scholars like Antoine Berman, Lawrence Venuti, and Susan Bassnett, the various researchers have concentrated on specific translations, which have been submitted to detailed description in a perspective that is mainly target oriented. Particular attention has therefore been devoted to the receiving context, considering how and why in England and somewhat later in America the impact of Manzoni’s work was weaker than in France and Germany. As emerges from the analyses, not only a faulty knowledge of Italian but other external factors exerted an ideological influence on reception and on the editorial machine.