Lady Gregory and Italy: A Lasting and Profitable Relationship‪.‬

Lady Gregory's relationship with Italy was a long and profitable one and her biography as well as her literary work provide evidence for this fact which still has not been investigated except for a recent conference in Italy. (1) In considering this connection, I shall draw from her journals and her autobiography, Seventy Years, (2) which consists of a series of long narratives of strong dramatic quality, as the writer objectifies her world in a dynamic context of interrelated voices. (3) Sometimes she speaks of herself in the third person singular and gives us a smiling, or thoughtful, or ironic portrait of the people or events that she comes across. This mixture of moods is evident in the following avowal of her youthful love for Italy: Like many girls of her social background Gregory had a good knowledge of Italian literature. She could read it in the original and, in accordance with the taste of her age, she always kept in her room a bust of Dante which had been given to her by Sir William Gregory for their engagement. She recalls her growing passion for the Italian language and literature during her first visits to Italy before marrying: