Lamartine's Ambivalent Relationship with Italy: An Episode of the `Risorgimento'

Lamartine's fascination with Italy, apparently the enthrallment of a young traveler, nourished by the classics as well as by Mme de Staël, seems to be contradicted by the extremely pessimistic view of the Italian political milieu expressed in his "Dernier chant du pèlerinage d'Harold." For this opinion the poet was challenged to a duel by a Neapolitan exile, General Gabriele Pepe, on 19 February 1826. The analysis of the genesis of the incriminating poem provides us with interesting insights. Lamartine's feelings about his host country seem to have been directed by two diverging emotions: a possessive desire of the classicist to preserve, unchanged, the glories of the past, and a more romantic sense of disappointment at the apparent moral and political stagnation of the early Italian "Risorgimento." The outcome of this episode helped Lamartine to realize the shallowness of his criteria and persist in keeping deep personal bonds with the country that he always considered as a "locus amoenus" of the spirit. (LM)