Katie Bowman English 595: Literature of Rome
Professor Bunkers 8 May 2008
"Rome, Fly-by-Night: An Improvisational Excursion"
When mid-semester enveloped me in Spring 2008, I didn’t have all of the dreadful feelings associated with midterms, exams, papers, and—in my case—thesis work that I may have otherwise endured, because this year, I knew I had a nine-day trip to Italy that I was soon to enjoy. While Italy was in the back of my mind during essentially everything I did in Mankato throughout the weeks and months preceding the trip, I had very little time to sit down and carefully plan an itinerary or articulate a list of travel goals for myself. So, for me it was going to have to be Italy, fly-by-night. However, I did have a few vague goals when I boarded the large Airbus plane headed for Rome by way of Amsterdam on March 7, 2008: I wanted to eat and enjoy some Italian food; get to know the other folks on the trip; keep a lookout for exciting landmarks; become familiar with some of the favorite local sites and regional culture; and, perhaps most importantly, improvise when needed.
With all of these predictable tourist goals in mind, I had very little desire to make a Daisy Miller of myself; that is, I really didn’t care to become a flagrant, ethnocentric American girl whose most sophisticated commentary about Europe had to do with dresses, shoes, or consumer culture. While I imagined that I would do some shopping—and indeed, I did peruse a few markets and miscellaneous storefronts—and, of course, some laughing and enjoying the company of (gasp!) both men and women, I cautioned myself from becoming an “unsophisticated” American “coquette,” or “only a pretty American flirt,” as was the case for Miss Miller (James 10). My goal was simply to “fly under the radar,” taking care to avoid being flamboyant or condescending to Americans or Europeans, and to be humble and reserved on my nine-day tour of Italy.
Armed with my philosophy of what I considered to be responsible tourism, I arrived in Rome with my new pal, Whitney, prepared to put my tourist abilities to the test. Whitney and I arrived several hours later than the rest of the Italy Study-Tour group, having booked our trip slightly later than the deadlines suggested, so we were on our own to find our way from the airport to the Hotel Palatino via the train at Termini station. We found the public transit to be very user-friendly, once we figured out where our starting and ending points were. Upon our arrival at the Palatino, we met with Joe Kunkel and Mary Beth Nygaard to discuss our evening plans; both Whitney and I were exhausted with jetlag (we lost about 7 hours of daytime along our journey) and felt grimy from traveling. So, Whitney and I each showered and met shortly afterward to embark on our first Italian dinner with some of our other group members in the Roman twilight.
As I showered and prepared myself for our evening dinner, I thought about all of the implications that going out after dark would have had for me if I would have lived during the nineteenth century and first decades of the twentieth century. As a woman in Rome, it would have been deemed indecent, indeed dangerous, for me to willingly set out during the twilight and nighttime hours in Rome. In Edith Wharton’s short story, “Roman Fever,” this nighttime danger is named—like in other literature of the day—“Roman fever,” and is used as a term to describe women’s sexual vulnerability and, in some cases, actual illness that occurs as a result of being outside at night in the presence of men. In an important scene in Wharton’s text wherein the two protagonists, Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley observe the sun setting over Rome, Wharton describes Mrs. Ansley’s consternation:
She stood up and leaned against the parapet, filling her troubled eyes with the tranquilizing magic of the hour. But instead of tranquilizing her the sight seemed to increase her exasperation. Her gaze turned toward the Colosseum. Already its golden flank was drowned in purple shadow, and above it the sky curved crystal clear, without light or color. It was the moment when afternoon and evening hang balanced in midheaven. Mrs. Slade turned back and laid her hand on her friend’s arm. The gesture was so abrupt that Mrs. Ansley looked up, startled.
The sun’s set. You’re not afraid, my dear?
Afraid—?
Of Roman fever or pneumonia!
Oh, we’re all right up here. Down below, in the Forum, it does get deathly cold, all of a sudden…but not here.
In this case, it seems clear that Mrs. Ansley is transfixed by the sudden chill brought forth by the sunset, and seems worried by the implications of the onset of the darkness. Both women are very familiar with and concerned about the possibility of Roman fever, and seem to need constant reassurance from one another that there is no immediate danger.
Contrary to Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade’s concerns, I felt comfortable and at peace in Rome during the nighttime hours. In fact, this was my favorite time to loiter about the various shops; meander around piazzas (Piazza Navona was my favorite); stroll around while licking the soft sides of a delicate scoop of gelato; and people-watch while sipping wine on the cobblestone patio of a small café. I attribute my comfort with the Roman nightscape to my generation’s lack of fear and acknowledgment of the old Victorian warnings about Roman fever and the gothic, romantic connotations of Rome. For example, in “Roman Fever,” Mrs. Ansley articulates this generational clash well. Mrs. Ansley suggests to Mrs. Slade,
I was just thinking…what different things Rome stands for to each generation of travelers. To our grandmothers, Roman fever; to our mothers, sentimental dangers—how we used to be guarded!—to our daughters, no more dangers than the middle of Main Street. They don’t know it—but how much they’re missing!
It is important to note that, while Mrs. Ansley is talking about “travelers” here, she goes onto to discuss only how Rome is perceived by women travelers who are, to be sure, the ones most susceptible to the romantic disease, Roman fever. Further, I believe that Mrs. Ansley is onto something when she proclaims, “but how much they’re missing!” While I’m sure Mrs. Ansley’s statement is driven largely by her own nostalgia for her youth and her past experiences in Rome, I believe that prior knowledge about Roman fever helps enrich one’s experience in Rome and create a sort of romantic mysticism that can be powerful in informing even the most contemporary generations’ perceptions of Rome. For me, this knowledge of Roman fever in literature helped create a more magical nighttime effect; I knew about the Victorians’ warnings regarding women’s sexual vulnerability at night in Rome, and it made it all the more exciting to experience Rome after dark.
This romantic, gothic mysticism regarding the literal and figurative darkness of Rome was especially apparent in the “Dark Heart of Rome” tour, an hour-and-a-half adventure I enjoyed on Tuesday, March 11. Along with four others from our group—Andrea, Elizabeth, Jessica, and Gaynor—I headed over to an old church several blocks away from our hotel to meet up with our tour guide, Angelo. Other than Angelo, the entire group consisted of women, another indicator that the Roman fever myth was being challenged. However, like myself, several of the other women (certainly the women from our English class) were familiar with romantic and gothic myths about Rome—like Roman fever—which had made us all eager to experience “The Dark Heart of Rome” together. Along our journey, we became acquainted with several very public piazzas where heretics and enemies of the various Popes had been burned, beheaded, and/or quartered. We also strolled past a number of locations which had allegedly become home to some unsettled ghosts. Notably, many of the spooky sites we stopped to ponder during the tour were connected to women’s apparitions haunted by abuse, domestic violence, and rape. Our tour guide, Angelo, made clear and articulate connections between the myths of Rome’s darkness and women’s subordinate position in ancient and medieval Rome associated with the true, more serious darkness of Rome’s misogynist and violent past.
While I see darkness and romanticism as major themes of my Italy trip, I also, of course, had many memorable daytime and lighthearted excursions worth discussing. My favorite days in Rome were my free days. Although I enjoyed our group tours—our time spent with Sandro sauntering through the Colosseum, Forum, Circus Maximus, Pantheon, and other landmarks of the great empire—I even more enjoyed my time spent with fellow Italy Study-Tour travelers exploring various piazzas, gelaterias, markets, pizzerias, and less-emphasized landmarks, like the Jewish Ghetto, the Capuchin Catacomb of Bones, and various churches. This free-form exploring reminded me of the carefree life of Princess Ann in the film, Roman Holiday. Since Ann had spent most of her life sequestered in her palace, performing her duties as a young lady of nobility, once she “escaped” from her palace and, in effect, her restrictive life as princess, she was able to engage in a vacation. For her, although she was supposedly an Italian princess, she seemed to know very little about her Italian metropolitan surroundings, since she had been isolated by her royal entourage most of her life. Like the extravagant and lighthearted Ann, my new discoveries in Italy made me a hedonist; essentially my every move revolved around my pleasure, gratification, and eagerness to learn. Like me, then, Ann’s escape from the palace was like a vacation to a new land. She was liberated, able to experience things that she otherwise would not have been permitted to do. Like me, Ann capitalized on her newfound free time, enjoyed new sights, flavors, and company. Ann’s discovery of herself through her newly found Italian landscape was similar to my own discovery of myself; I had just been “liberated” from the United States, from my exams, from my thesis, and I was reborn as an energetic and optimistic international traveler who yearned for new experiences.
My carefree attitude was finally manifested in a sequence of events that occurred on our final free day. I decided to venture out on my own; I was becoming braver than I had been thus far on the trip, and, to be frank, I was ready for a little alone time. So, I started trekking with no particular destination in mind. When I wanted to turn left, I would turn left; when I cared to turn right, I’d go ahead with it. However, I finally got myself into a part of town that looked unfamiliar. I wrote in my journal that night:
So, I did the logical thing: I looked at my map. However, to my dismay (and, sort of, panic), my map did not account for the roads I was on. I was out of bounds. Yikes! Finally I saw some random woman who looked like she knew what she was doing and I started to follow her. She made her way to a secluded, poorly marked metro station, into which I followed her. I purchased a ticked for 1 Euro, having no clue where this train would get me (Hotel Palatino or Naples? The Trevi Fountain or the airport?) But luckily it was heading into town rather than further out of bounds, and I was able to make it to Piazza Barberini, near Trevi Fountain. I spent the remainder of my afternoon mulling around the fountain area. (Wednesday, 3/12/08).
This experience was humbling, but exciting. I was successfully able to employ the metro system to find my way back into town without getting in too much of a pinch. I enjoyed having a day purely to myself; I remember once I finally got off that train back into familiar territory, I bought myself a beautiful berry and crème torte with a Fanta, and just sat on a patio watching the world go by. It was relaxing, and a relief.
This synopsis is only a very partial representation of my Italy trip, but suffices to illuminate some of the highlights. I am not sure that I could put a value on my experience, or a grade value on my work. What I can say is that I was committed to this class, because it offered me an opportunity to get out of my Women’s Studies Master’s Degree coursework (the one-and-only opportunity I had to take an elective outside of the department), so I tried to make the absolute most of the class that I could. I always posted thoughtful paragraphs on D2L, responded to others’ posts on D2L, signed on regularly (at least three times a week, probably a lot more), and participated in class regularly. But these were all enjoyable for me; I was so happy to share my perspective with others and to learn from the other really excellent folks that contributed to our class. I was gone one time from class, due to a migraine, but I kept up with materials from class regardless of that absence. I am so happy to have had the opportunity to participate actively with such a fantastic group of students and faculty; thank you!