Questions of authority: Italo-Australian travel narratives of the long nineteenth century

Abstract

This thesis investigates Italo-Australian literary travel exchanges throughout the long nineteenth century. The 1800s witnessed major transformations in Australian overseas travel: it gradually evolved from a replica of the Continental Grand Tour of the British, whose goals were the cities of Rome, Florence and Venice, to a more idiosyncratic cosmopolitan experience, either touristic or professional. Moreover, it was during the second half of this century that both Italy and Australia underwent crucial political upheavals; these resulted in shifts from colonial and subjugated status, to self-government and ultimately independence. This thesis connects the geographical, political and socio-cultural contexts of Italy and Australia by considering their interlaced odeporic library, produced at a significant time in history. It looks at key texts compiled by Italians in Australia, and Australians in Italy: these chiefly consist of voyage accounts, but also include the records of explorers, missionaries, scientists and migrants coming from the Italian peninsula. About one third of the primary sources are unpublished travel diaries compiled by the first Victorian women visitors to the Bel Paese, which have been largely neglected by scholarship thus far. This examination pinpoints the enduring significance of Italy in travel-related terms, showing how this destination was adapted from the map of eighteenth-century British Grand Tourists, to that of nineteenth-century Australian holiday makers. Most critically, it suggests that Italo-Australian peripatetic connections entail issues of authority, that emerge in the ways in which Italian and Australian travel writers displayed their authorship, cultural capital and national identification in relation to ‘the other country.’ Finally, it demonstrates how these are highly regulated by, and yet simultaneously challenge, British colonial hegemony.