Paper short abstract:

This paper is concerned to show that a number of the aspects of the seemingly novel and nascent development that is 'lifestyle migration' are in fact historically located. I shall do this with respect to the ways in which Italian culture was represented on behalf of the Romantic poets.

Paper long abstract:

Lifestyle migration is typically understood as an historically novel development, and to some degree it is. Notions of escape in order to pursue more 'authentic' and less 'self-conscious' modes of living are often understood and discussed as though part of a nascent socio-economic trend. History shows us that this is simply not the case. This paper is concerned to compare and describe modes of representing and appropriating Italy and the Italian lifestyle past and present as the means to escape. The cultural artefacts used in the comparison comprise select works of the Romantic poets Byron and Shelley, and a number of present-day lifestyle magazines centring on Italy and the Italian lifestyle. This paper will argue that the vision of Italy and the Italian way of life set-out and contained within these magazines demonstrates a marked degree of similarity between that of the ways in which the Romantic poets Byron and Shelley wrote about and imagined Italy at the time of writing between the period 1800 to 1820.

In addition to examining the work of these two romantic poets, I shall also examine the wider social and cultural conditions that informed and shaped their work. I shall do this in terms of a Bourdieusian field analysis. The final part of the paper will concern itself with trying to trace out and identify the social and cultural conditions that have led to the re-emergence of this distinctly romantic way of thinking about Italy and the Italian lifestlye as contained within the pages of these present day lifestyle magazines.