The Odyssey is rightly celebrated as a story that goes far beyond the scope of epic poetry. It is an open window to an entire era and its social systems as well as its theological, cultural, economic and political structures, while running simultaneously in the register of the earthly and of the divine. Within The Odyssey, the episode of the Sirens stands out as an exceptionally evocative example of this kind of achievement. This volume is dedicated to exploring the myriad levels of analysis that are allowed by this famous... Read more →

Elusive yet intuitive at the same time, the concept of collocation has attracted the attention of different branches of linguistics for many a year, owing to the proven pervasiveness of such combinations in languages. Although a universally accepted definition of collocation has not been reached as each attempted description is inextricably related to the linguist’s standpoint, the development of a series of very workable ideas on the nature of these combinations has led to the production of worthy linguistic commodities. While English lexicography has kept pace with the development in... Read more →

An overview of the complex world of John Donne’s poetry and specifically of his reflections on the theme of the journey of the soul. Donne’s Metempsychosis and his Anniversaries are analysed from both a literary and philosophical/ theological perspective, in the context of the rising new science. Audrey Taschini is a researcher in English literature, history of science, philosophy and theology at the University of Bergamo. She translated into Italian T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and John Donne’s Anniversaries.   TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface Regressus Animae to Progressus Animae: The... Read more →

The three essays that comprise this volume explore literary representations of the ‘True Womanhood’ ideology, a narrative through which nineteenth-century women could invest their existence and their role in the world with meaning and purpose. In Victorian America, middle-toupper- middle-class women were not admitted to centers of public power. Being relegated to the private sphere, i.e., the domestic milieu, they had only one socially respectable function – that of a wife and mother – while the masculine sphere of action was the public one, the realm of business and politics.... Read more →

This study is held by the overarching idea that a precise metalanguage should be required when we intend to critically talk about translations as texts. Due to the lack of communication between the translation industry and academic research, on the one hand the notions heralded by Translation Studies are regarded as “parochial,” “too technical” and “academic” by professionals (a category that includes editors, proof-readers, translation agencies and all the other figures working in the translation industry) who oftentimes prefer relying exclusively on their own experience, on the other hand scholars... Read more →

The papers collected in this volume deal with the explorations of Science Fiction, Fantasy and, more generally, the representation of otherness through the narrative construction of fantastic, imaginary, appalling or attractive places, stories and figures. Contributions are arranged in four main sections. The first section (Other spaces, new worlds) deals with Hindi and Arabic Science Fiction. The second section (Constructing forms of otherness) analyses the narrative and psychological mechanisms that give forms to a stereotype or archetypical image of the threatening Other. The third section ((Re)shaping style(s), language(s) and discourse(s)... Read more →

The volume is devoted to images in painting, photography and cinema invented by literature. At the same time it intends to question, through this perspective, the relationship between text and image, between verbal and visual in modern and contemporary literature. The authors investigate the mutual boundaries between literature and arts from the point of view of aesthetics, visual culture and literary theory, trying to build a map of the notional ékphrasis, a description which constitutes the work of art while telling it. Valeria Cammarata is assistant professor of Comparative Literature,... Read more →

The aim of this collection of essays is to explore “negative characters” in the espionage narratives of some of the most esteemed English writers, such as Conrad, Maugham, Ambler, Greene, Fleming, McEwan among others. The role of women is analysed, in particular with the figure of Mata Hari, so as to provide a gender perspective on women as villains and/or double agents. The relationship between literature and film studies is also considered in a comparative approach. Carmen Concilio is Associate Professor of English and postcolonial literature at the University of Turin.... Read more →