'Who the Devil Taught Thee So Much Italian?' Italian Language Learning and Literary Imitation in Early Modern England

by Lawrence, Jason

• ISBN13: 9780719069147
• ISBN10: 0719069149
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-09-19
• Publisher: Manchester University Press

Summary

This book offers a comprehensive account of the methods and practice of learning modern languages, particularly Italian, in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. It is the first study to suggest that there is a fundamental connection between these language-learning habits and the techniques for both reading and imitating Italian materials employed by a range of poets and dramatists, such as Daniel, Drummond, Marston and Shakespeare, in the same period.

Author Biography

Jason Lawrence is Lecturer in English at the University of Hull.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
Introduction	1	(18)
1 'Mie new London Companions for Italian and French': modern language learning in Elizabethan England	19	(43)
2 'A stranger borne/To be indenized with us, and made our owne': Samuel Daniel and the naturalisation of Italian literary forms	62	(56)
3 'Give me the ocular proof': Shakespeare's Italian language-learning habits	118	(59)
Conclusion: Seventeenth-century language learning	177	(10)
Appendix: John Wolfe's Italian publications	187	(15)
Bibliography	202	(17)
Index	219