Renaissances at Borders of Literary Modernity: Translations and Language Debates between the Nahḍah and the Risorgimento

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the possibility to draw a comparison between intellectual features of the Italian peninsula and of the Arab provinces of the Eastern Mediterranean during nineteenth century movements of “awakening” (Risorgimento and Nahḍah). By putting aside issues of national historiography, this study attempts to investigate the cultural debates in the area with a comparative approach and a focus on the concept of cultural transfer. It discusses in particular the widespread circulation of translations and the rise of debates about language, to underscore the need to interrogate the concept of modernity from a multidisciplinary and comparative perspective.