The Idea of Beauty in Italian Literature and Language

In January BRILL published The Idea of Beauty in Italian Literature and Language, a book by Prof Dr Harald Hendrix (Early Modern Literature), Prof Dr Philiep Bossier (Early Modern Literature) and Dr Claudio Di Felice (Leiden University).

Beauty is a central concept in the Italian cultural imagination throughout its history and in virtually all its manifestations. It particularly permeates the domains that have governed the construction of Italian identity: literature and language.

The power of beauty

The Idea of Beauty in Italian Literature and Language assesses this long tradition in a series of essays covering a wide chronological and thematic range, while crossing from historical linguistics to literary and cultural studies. It offers elements for reflection on cross-disciplinary approaches in the humanities, and demonstrates the power of beauty as a fundamental category beyond aesthetics.

Harald Hendrix

Harald Hendrix is Director of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome and full Professor of Italian Studies at Utrecht University. He has published on the European reception of early modern Italian literature, on the baroque aesthetics of the non-beautiful, and on the intersections of Italian literature, memorial practices and travel cultures.

Philiep Bossier

Philiep Bossier is full Professor of Italian Studies at Utrecht University, and the University of Groningen. He has published on early modern Romance literature in Europe, the history of Italian professional theatre and the rhetoric of emerging female authorship in the Italian renaissance.

Hendrix and Bossier are both connected to Institutions for Open Societies - an interdisciplinary research area of Utrecht University focused on the development and expansion of healthy open societies everywhere.

• Title: The Idea of Beauty in Italian Literature and Language
• Authors: Harald Hendrix, Philiep Bossier and Claudio Di Felice
• Publicer: BRILL
• ISBN: 978-90-04-38895-6