Gabriele D’Annunzio and World Literature : Multilingualism, Translation, Reception

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

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.