SOURCE: “Ugo Foscolo's Europe: A Journey from the Sublime to Romantic Humor,” in Symposium, Vol. 47, No. 2, Summer, 1993, pp. 98-111.

In the following essay, Costa reflects on how Foscolo's travels from Italy to England, his readings, and the politics of the time affected the tone of his fragmentary work Lettere scritte dall'Inghilterra, which was written between 1817 and 1818.

The concept of Europe envisioned by Ugo Foscolo was deeply affected by the aesthetic views that dominated his life. Foscolo's Europe is a reflection of his creative spirit and, as such, must be gathered from his works in prose and verse. Fashioned in various genres, such works reflect different psychological moods by the writer and take the form of two opposite artistic expressions: the sublime and the comic. Both are linked to the theme of the journey, which can be either sublime—as is the case with Ulysses—or comic, as expressed...