Introduzione

Abstract

The ship and the sea have always held an important place in literature, with their powerful imagery. Ships are constantly central and have become the symbol of the proximity of “here and elsewhere”, the proximity of real, ruled places, and the boundless space which contains imagined places. The title of the interdisciplinary conference “Transatlantici ed altri bastimenti: Transiti, desideri, memorie” (“Ocean Liners and Other Ships: Passages, Desires, Memories”), evokes the sea as supreme boundary and as object of desire and fear, but also as the crossing of oceanic distances, thus foregrounding the crucial theme of wandering, a motif which underlays the various contributions and is declined in a multitude of significations, historical and social concretions. Beside that of the journey, many are the issues, the figures, and the topoi connected with the ship within the antique and the modern imagery. The articles are grouped in three sections: “From Legends to Scenes”, “Europe and Beyond”, “From the Empire to the Global World”.