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Toronto Italian Studies
Postal Culture

Postal Culture

Writing and Reading Letters in Post-Unification Italy

by Gabriella Romani

Published by: University of Toronto Press

Series: Toronto Italian Studies

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

8 b&w illustrations

Digital download
9781442667235
Published: December 2013

Digital download
9781442667259
Published: December 2013

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

The nationalization of the postal service in Italy transformed post-unification letter writing as a cultural medium. Both a harbinger of progress and an expanded, more efficient means of circulating information, the national postal service served as a bridge between the private world of personal communication and the public arena of information exchange and production of public opinion. As a growing number of people read and wrote letters, they became part of a larger community that regarded the letter not only as an important channel in the process of information exchange, but also as a necessary instrument in the education and modernization of the nation.

In Postal Culture, Gabriella Romani examines the role of the letter in Italian literature, cultural production, communication, and politics. She argues that the reading and writing of letters, along with epistolary fiction, epistolary manuals, and correspondence published in newspapers, fostered a sense of community and national identity and thus became a force for social change.

Part I:

Chapter I: Postal Culture after 1861: an Introduction
Chapter II: Writing and Reading Letters: the Nationalization of the Italian Postal Service, Epistolary Manuals, and the Printed Media.

Part II:

Chapter III: Fictionalizing the Letter: Giovanni Verga’s Storia di una capinera.
Chapter IV: Cœresponding with her Readers: the Sentimental Politics of Matilde Serao’s Epistolary Fiction.
Chapter V: Conclusions

Appendix: Letters transcribed from newspapers:
Ippolito Nievo: “Sulla convenienza per le fanciulle di adoperare anche nell’uso domestico la lingua comune italiana.” (La Ricamatrice)
Pacifico Valussi: “La Donna italiana: Lettera I, II, III, IV, V” (La Ricamatrice)
Caterina Percoto: “Memorie dal convento” I, II, III, IV (Giornale delle Famiglie)
Matilde Serao, “La serva” (La Stampa)
Marchesa Colombi, “La padrona” (La Stampa)
Neera, “La donna libera” (L’Illustrazione Italiana)
Marchesa Colombi, “La donna povera” (L’Illustrazione Italiana)
Anna Maria Mozzoni, “Lettera aperta a Matilde Serao.” (La Lega della Democrazia)
Matilde Serao, “Lettera aperta a Anna Maria Mozzoni.” (La Lega della Democrazia)

Bibliography

Index

Gabriella Romani is Professor of Italian at Seton Hall University. Her research is mainly focused on nineteenth-century cultural history and literature: women’s participation in the rhetoric of the Risorgimento political and cultural movements, the pedagogical and educational developments of Italy during the pre-and postunification era, popular culture of the late 1800s, gender and cultural studies. She is the coeditor of Writing to Delight: Italian Short Stories by Nineteenth-Century Women
Writers (2006); has edited and introduced Edith Bruck’s Letter to My Mother (2007). She is the coeditor two volumes of essays, The Formation of a National Audience in Italy (1750–1890): Readers and Spectators of Italian Culture (2017) and The Printed Media in Fin-Siècle Italy (2011). She is also editor of Edmondo De Amicis, Impressioni di Roma (2011). Her most recent book is Postal Culture: Writing and Reading Italy in Post-Unification Italy. She co-translated Enrico Castelnuovo, The Moncalvos (2017) and is currently working on a book project about Jewish Italian writers in late–nineteenth-century Italy. Romani is the Director of the Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute at Seton Hall University.

‘Engaging and important book…. Romani’s ability to entre a cordial dialogue with other scholars and her keenness to place her research within wider contexts make this book an incredible resource.’
~Maria Grazia Lolla, Modern Philology vol 113:02:2015

‘This is a valuable study which firmly places letter-writing in its cultural context at an important time in Italian history and highlights its significance in the construction of national identity.’
~Ursula Fanning, Modern Language Review vol 111:03:2016