Traveling Toward Distance: Italian Lessons

Human beings are wanderers, although in another way we are more like trees, rooted in place, both physical and psychological. We cross borders, both internal and external, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, but often find ourselves seeing the new only in terms of the old or, more dangerously, not seeing the new at all. This article will explore through concrete instances pivotal philosophical and existential implications and lessons of the “fusion of horizons” exemplified in Montaigne's, Goethe's, Stendhal's, and James's reflections on their often contradictory experiences of Italy. Maybe Émile Zola's remark that a work of art is a corner of nature seen through a temperament applies to more than works of art.