Open AccessInto the Wood: Dante, Byron and James in “Ravenna”
Author(s) -
Tamara Follini
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
viatica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2275-0827
DOI - 10.52497/viatica1152
Subject(s) - ravenna , allusion , art , sophist , humanities , art history , philosophy , literature , history , ancient history
Approaching James’s 1874/1875 neglected Italian travelogue “Ravenna” as a disguised parable of the difficulties caused by expatriation for an aspiring writer, this article explores how references to Byron and Dante, and their poetic use of the nearby famous wood, the Pineta, position them as exemplars who renew James’s confidence in his creative ambitions; it also proposes that an allusion to Ravenna in The Wings of the Dove infuses the novel with overtones of Dante while revealing the elaborate circuits of James’s imaginative invention.