Harald Hendrix

The Turn of the Soul

Focusing on conversion as one of early modern Europe’s most pressing issues, the present book offers a comprehensive reading of artistic and literary ways in which spiritual transformations and exchanges of religious identities were given meaning.

From Early Modern to Romantic Literary Tourism: A Diachronical Perspective

In nineteenth-century Great Britain, literary tourism develops into a remarkable phenomenon that in many ways transcends and explodes the traditional peculiarities of this ancient cultural practice. Preceding developments in other countries, and even dictating their orientations, British romantic literary tourism, moreover, discloses some of the more essential qualities that govern and help to explain its very existence, from the gradually evolving relationship between readers, authors and texts on the one hand, to the appropriation of essentially elitist and universalist habits into emergent mass cultures susceptible of supporting nationalist ideologies on the other. The invention of specific textual genres like the Homes and Haunts books, the construction of writers’ houses as literary shrines, and the tourist transformation and development of entire regions according to their supposed literary representation, make the British situation an eminently suitable case study to better understand how in nineteenth-century culture the practice of literary tourism came to be so successful. In order, however, to grasp its specificity, not only in a chronological and international perspective, but also as to its literary nature, a comparative approach is called for. This essay therefore sets out to discuss British nineteenth-century literary tourism as part of an ancient tradition, identifying what distinguishes it from earlier manifestations of this cultural practice, not just in Britain but all over Europe, notably in Italy. In fact, while sketching the passage from ancient to early modern and finally romantic literary tourism it also describes a geographical change in cultural hegemony, since in this process the centre of cultural innovation gradually moves from Italy to France and ultimately Britain.1

Petrarch 1804–1904

Focusing on the Petrarch centenaries in Italy and France between 1804 and 1904, this chapter critically assesses the assumption that 19th-century commemorative literary culture was primarily inspired and driven by ideals of nation-building. Though doubtless fostered and strengthened by the new nationalist zeal, the celebrations discussed here comprise many elements that transcend the framework of nation-building and denote links with more traditional cultural practices, inspired by cosmopolitanism on the one hand and local competition on the other. This suggests that 19th-century nationalist thought had a multidirectional effect on extant commemorative practices, not only inspiring national appropriations of literary reputations but also reviving and consolidating both local and cosmopolitan perspectives on such heritage. Using the concept of the ‘glocaľ, the following chapter attempts to capture this dynamic between the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ in the commemorations of Petrarch.

Sight and Insight : Paul as a Model of Conversion in Rethoricians' Drama

The conversion of the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1- 19) was repeatedly dramatised in the sixteenth century. This chapter focuses on a dramatisation of this conversion story, called The Conversion of Paul (De Bekeeringe Pauli). It shows how Paul functions as a model of conversion in this play and examines the way in which his conversion is given shape, both verbally and visually. The first point the chapter makes, is that his conversion comes down to an inner change resulting from a process of sight and insight, first physically, then spiritually. The second point it seeks to bring its audience to an expression of the individual believers personal relationship with God, which was experienced inwardly, in the heart, and which transcended contemporary religious disputes. Keywords:conversion; Damascus; God; insight; Paul; sight

The Construction of an Author: Pietro Aretino and the Elizabethans

Writing about oneself in an age when autobiography was at most a hybrid category means taking a stand as well as trying to define one’s own identity. The two motivations often mingle, and they are inseparable in the case of people that perceive of their own identity as fundamentally different or distinct. Self-representation easily becomes apologetic and polemic. As such an act of defiance, we find the autobiographical urge in what is no doubt the most impressive text the Italian Renaissance produced in this (until then) informal genre, Cellini’s Vita. Written around 1560 as a celebration of the extraordinary accomplishments of this Florentine goldsmith and sculptor, the text documents the unprecedented social advancement of the Renaissance artist as much as the psychological attitude of arrogant boasting which seems to come naturally with it. Cellini’s shameless but highly amusing inclination to exaggerate his own achievements should, however, not only be seen as a reflection of his pathological conceitedness, but as an indication that his autobiographical writing springs from the urge to construct as well as document his own personality. In the exaggeration we may uncover his ambitions: what he is constructing by way of hyperbolic expression is not just an ordinary private person, but an artist worthy of praise and admiration, and especially of social and material recognition.