Matilda's Italian Obsession: A Character Analysis from English Fiction (1820-1837)

Foreign address, foreign adulation, foreign enthusiasm captivated her. Italy too was the land of the arts, and Italians alone understood the finer feelings inspired by those intellectual sisters. The verses of Tasso had ever been familiar to Matilda; she knew of no English poetry that touched the heart, without a smack of foreign in it. Byron was a self-adopted Italian- the muse of Moore revelled either in oriental or occidental fancy, and the northern scenes of Scott, so flexible was her geography, she placed in the same poetic latitude, at least with those of Ariosto. Of Italian music, too, Miss Euston had become an admirer: her mother had of course a box at St Carlos, overflowing each evening with crowds of critical amateurs, and the comparative merits of Davide and Nozzari, of Cimarosa and Paesiello often disturbed her rest. She made the most vigorous efforts at comprehending the occult merits and excellencies of the art of painting; but this lay all together too deep for her, and on this point, at least, Matilda was doomed to reluctant ignorance. (Vol.I, pp.36-7)