EUGENIO WENCESLAO FOULQUES (1852-1928) AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE STUDIES IN ITALY

Abstract

The 19th century was a time of great progress in Europe. As a result, the Italian market came to be flooded with publications aiming to satisfy new groups and types of learners who needed to master modern languages in order to take advantage of the professional opportunities and intercultural exchanges that the modern age offered. Italian publishers employed grammarians and translators to secure a share of this highly competitive market, by introducing texts that proposed new materials and teaching methods. This paper deals with the figure of Eugenio Wenceslao Foulques, who was certainly a well-known author and publisher of his time. A general overview of his contribution to the study of English as a foreign language for native speakers of Italian will be followed by a focus on some of Foulques’s most interesting works, such as La lingua inglese parlata facilmente da tutti e imparata senza maestro and Il tesoro della lingua inglese.