Italy (The Long Run)

Paulina Trant spent one autumn together with Jim Dalham in Italy (Wharton 309). The reader does not know, where exactly in Italy they have been.

Italy’s history is very old. According to Roman historiography, the city of Rome was founded as early as 753 BC, a good two centuries later it was to become the capital of an aspiring Roman Empire (ZAINOO). Step by step, the Romans conquered the Mediterranean and half of Europe (ZAINOO). Roman law, Catholicism, art and culture as well as technical progress shaped from now on not only the history of Italy, but that of the entire western world (ZAINOO). After the disintegration of Rome into a Western Roman and an Eastern Roman Empire, the heyday was over (ZAINOO). While the Eastern Roman Empire existed until 1453, Roman rule in Italy ended with the continuous invasion of foreign people and the conquest of Rome by Odoacans in 476 AD (ZAINOO).

Different European powers ruled different parts of Italy from that day on and shaped the country to some extent to this day (ZAINOO).

After a long low, Italy briefly regained cultural and economic supremacy in Europe in the 15th century (ZAINOO). Italy’s powerful city republics were the centre of humanism and the Renaissance (ZAINOO). With the discovery of America, however, this dominance was quickly lost, and Italy again became the plaything of the newly emerging great powers France and Austria (ZAINOO). For the first time since Roman times, the Italian city-states were finally united under Napoleon, who proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy and crowned himself king (ZAINOO). With the burgeoning nationalism, the Italian peoples finally rose up against Austria and in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was founded (ZAINOO). The idea of a great power that followed ended in the First World War, in which Italy emerged as a winner but plunged the country into deep economic and social problems and paved the way for fascism (ZAINOO).

Paulina and Jim Dalham visited Italy before the First World War. Therefore, the assumption that it was a nice trip to Italy is obvious. Also, reader nowadays think of Italy as a nice and warm country to travel to and have a good time there.

Italy in the 20th century and nowadays does not have such a negative connotation as for example Africa. That is probably why Edith Wharton chose Italy as the country where Paulina and Jim Dalham traveled to, to underline the idea of them having an affair.

Sources:

• Wharton, Edith. “The Long Run.” The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton. Volume II. Ed. Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis. New York: A Charles Scribner´s Sons Book Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989. 301-324. Print.

• ZAINOO. “Geschichte Italien. Von der Hochkultur zur Europäischen Union. ALEWA GmbH. 2019. Web. 06. Nov. 2019. <https://www.zainoo.com/de/italien/geschichte-italien>