Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance: Appropriation, Transformation, Opposition(Anglo-Italian Renaissance Studies)

Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance investigates the works of Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists from within the context of the European Renaissance and, more specifically, from within the context of Italian cultural, dramatic, and literary traditions, with reference to the impact and influence of classical, coeval, and contemporary culture. In contrast to previous studies, the critical perspectives pursued in this volume’s tripartite organization take into account a wider European intertextual dimension and, above all, an ideological interpretation of the 'aesthetics' or 'politics' of intertextuality. Contributors perceive the presence of the Italian world in early modern England not as a traditional treasure trove of influence and imitation, but as a potential cultural force, consonant with complex processes of appropriation, transformation, and ideological opposition through a continuous dialectical interchange of compliance and subversion.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction: Shakespearean subversions, Michele Marrapodi. Part I Appropriations of Poetry and Prose: Sprezzatura and embarrassment in The Merchant of Venice, Harry Berger Jr.; A niggle of doubt: courtliness and chastity in Shakespeare and Castiglione, John Roe; Dramatic appropriations of Italian courtliness, Thomas Kullmann; Disowning the bond: Coriolanus’s forgetful humanism, Maria Del Sapio Garbero; Matteo Bandello’s social authorship and Paulina as patroness in The Winter’s Tale, Melissa Walter; Tracing a villain: typological intertextuality in the works of Painter, Webster, Cinthio, and Shakespeare, Karen Zyck Galbraith. Part II Transformations of Topoi and Theatregrams: `Wanton pictures’: the baffling of Christopher Sly and the visual-verbal intercourse of early modern erotic arts, Keir Elam; Shylock’s Venice and the grammar of the modern city, Sergio Costola and Michael Saenger; Helen the Italianate theatrical wayfarer of All’s Well That Ends Well, Eric Nicholson; `These times of woe’: the contraction and dislocation of time in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Bruce W. Young; `Dark is light’- from Italy to England: challenging tradition through colours, Camilla Caporicci; The Italian Commedia and the fashioning of the Shakespearean fool, Iuliana Tanase. Part III Oppositions of Ideologies and Cultures: The Aretinean intertext and the heterodoxy of The Taming of the Shrew, Michele Marrapodi; Shakespeare Italianate: sceptical crises in three kinds of play, Lawrence F. Rhu; The Jew and the justice of Venice, Hanna Scolnicov; Hamlet, Ortensio Lando, or `to be or not to be’ paradoxically explained, Rocco Coronato; Much ado about Italians in Renaissance London, Duncan Salkeld; Shakespeare, Italian music-drama, and contemporary performance: space, time, and the acoustic worlds of Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest, Anthony R. Guneratne. Bibliography; Index.

About the Author :
Michele Marrapodi is Full Professor of English Language and Literature, and History of English Drama, in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Palermo, Italy.