Review of Mirella Agorni, 'Translating Italy for the Nineteenth Century. Translators and an Imagined Nation in the Early Romantic Period 1816-1830s', Bern, Peter Lang, 2021

The article is a review of the monograph by Mirella Agorni entitled Translating Italy for the Nineteenth Century (Bern, Peter Lang, 2021). The volume outlines ways in which perceptions of literary translation contributed to the construction of the Italian nation, examining the translation of works from English (sometimes through the medium of French) and the ways in which these translations positioned themselves on the Italian literary market through paratexts. A particular focus of the volume is the translation of Walter Scott, chiefly by Gaetano Barbieri. The review points out important methodological implications in this work, including a greater attention to translators and a critical perspective on the notion of hermetic cultural systems often implicit in work on translation.