Geschichte der italienischen Literatur in Österreich : Teil 1

Towards the end of the 20th century the Italian literature created outside Italy finally started to receive proper attention, because research began to focus on the socio-cultural analysis of the different forms of internal and external postcolonialism. As a result, both imperialism and nationalism are seen as responsible for phenomena of cultural alienation in many territories outside as well as inside the national borders of the country and are exposed as ideological constructs. Nevertheless research still neglects the one undoubtedly outstanding region in the production of Italian literature outside Italy, i.e. Austria, more precisely the territories of the Habsburg Monarchy, where for nearly 500 years - from early Humanism to the First World War - the tradition was the richest in quantity as well as in quality. This first part of a comprehensive history of the Italian literature created in Austria for an Austrian public has been written with the intention of filling this gap. The unique position the Italian language held at Vienna's imperial court at least from the middle of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century is well known: Italian was not only an official language for