Shakespeare, Italy and intertextuality

by Marrapodi, Michele

• ISBN13: 9780719066672
• ISBN10: 0719066670
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-10-01
• Publisher: Manchester University Press

Summary

This collection of essays, written by distinguished international scholars, focuses on the structural influence of Italian literature, culture and society at large on Shakespeare's dramatic canon. Exploring recent methodological trends coming from Anglo-American new historicism and cultural materialism and innovative analyses of intertextuality, the volume's four thematic sections deal with "Theory and practice," "Culture and tradition," "Text and ideology," and "Stage and spectacle."

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

List of illustrations

Introduction: Intertextualising Shakespeare's text

Theory and Practice

Seven types of intertextuality

English bodies in Italian habits

Shakespeare and Plutarch: Intertextuality in action

'Voilagrave; la belle mort': The crisis of the aristocracy in 'Troilus and Cressida'

Culture and Tradition

Beyond the Reformation: Italian intertexts of the ransom plot in 'Measure for Measure'

'The story is extant, and writ in very choice Italian': Shakespeare's dramatisations of Cinthio

Intertextual transformations: The novella as mediator between Italian and English Renaissance drama

Shakespeare's Italian intertexts: 'The Taming of the/a Shrew'

Text and Ideology

'What news on the Rialto': Luxury, sodomy and miscegenation in 'The Merchant of Venice'

'Othello' italicized: Xenophobia and the erosion of tragedy

The politics of plot: 'Measure for Measure' and the Italianate disguised duke play

'The three-fold world divided': 'Julius Caesar' in the light of 'Theologia Platonica'

Stage and Spectacle

Cleopatra's barge and Anthony's body: Italian sources and English theatre

Intertextuality and the chess-motif: Shakespeare, Middleton, Greenaway

'Rare Italian master(s)': Roman art in 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Anthony and Cleopatra' and 'The Winter's Tale'

Shakespeare in the 'bottega': Art works, apocrypha and the stage

Afterword: Italy as intertext

Select bibliography

Notes on contributors

Index

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