Thesis
The wild west in Italy and in the Italian imagination, travel writing, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and popular culture
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2020
- Thesis identifier
- T15799
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 201062617
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- This thesis examines how the Wild West as a regional phase in American history and its myths have been introduced in Italy and how they have entered the Italian collective imagination. It argues that the Wild West is lastingly connected to Italian culture and identity through the figure of Buffalo Bill (W. F. Cody). This study assesses how knowledge of the American frontier and its myths were first spread across Italy by the narratives and memoirs of travellers who journeyed to the American West. It looks specifically at the ways in which these travellers depicted western territories and their inhabitants, and at the same time at how they expressed patriotic feelings for their motherland. The Wild West was then popularized on a mass-scale by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which visited Italy twice at the turn of the 20th Century receiving an extraordinary success. The image of the Wild West spread by Buffalo Bill was then further propagated and lionized in popular culture: literature, graphic art and cinema permanently fixed Wild West images in the Italian collective imagination. “The Wild West in Italy and in the Italian Imagination” offers a new scholarly perspective on this topic by analysing an extensive body of archival material, some previously unknown and all yet to be fully appreciated by scholars. This includes newspaper articles in Italian, letters and visual material such as brochures, original illustrations, satirical cartoons, posters and photographs. By employing an interdisciplinary approach this thesis establishes connections and creates a transnational narrative which explains the specifically Italian responses to the Wild West and its myths, focusing particularly on the idiosyncratic ways in which Italians have adopted and appropriated them to fit their needs. This study also partly looks at the image Americans had of Italy and at the ways in which Italy was perceived by the members of the Wild West show. By engaging with these materials and approaches, this thesis reframes the discourse on the reception of the Wild West myth and of the western genre in 19th and 20th Century Italy.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Williams, Manuela A., 1968-
- Ellis, Mark, 1953-
- Resource Type
- Note
- Strathclyde theses - ask staff. Thesis no. : T15799
- This thesis was previously under moratorium between February 2021 until 2026.
- DOI
- Date Created
- 2020
- Former identifier
- 9912945492402996
Relations
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