Italy, Garibaldi and Goldoni Give Lady Gregory ‘a Room with a Different View’

Abstract

This paper analyses the complex influence of Italy on Lady Gregory’s imagination. On the one hand she considered the Italian fight for independence
a good example for Ireland. Reading Garibaldi’s Defence of the Roman Republic was “comforting” to her. On the other, she looked at Eleonora Duse’s efforts to create a national theatre with sympathy and with pride as she succeeded where the Italian actress had failed. She had a wide knowledge of Italian literature which she could read in the original. In her youth she even translated passages from Dante’s Commedia, but what is more important and revealing is that, at the height of her own creative career, with the intention of providing a more international repertory for the Abbey Theatre, she translated Goldoni’s La Locandiera. The choice of this play and the technique adopted for the translation cast new light on her view of life and on her work.