The Mediterranean world has long had strong cultural links to Great Britain as well as to the
United States. Through the analysis of artistic objects and critical writings that crystallise
this encounter the essays in this volume demonstrate the variety and complexity of the
connections between two geographical zones and two or more cultures. Mediterranean cultures are
shown to haunt American and British culture and artistic productions. The relation between
British and American literature and art on the one hand and Mediterranean arts on the other
goes beyond the mere inscription of British and American culture in a Mediterranean tradition.
British and American culture and art come out as unearthing a wide variety of Mediterranean
artistic forms renewing and transforming them. This collection shows how lively the encounter
between the Mediterranean and the English-Speaking worlds still is. It highlights how much
English as well as American culture and art owe today to the Mediterranean ones how mainly in
the fields of literature and art the two civilisations have never discontinued the dialogue
they adumbrated centuries ago.
