Italian Culture in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

Applying recent developments in new historicism and cultural materialism - along with the new perspectives opened up by the current debate on intertextuality and the construction of the theatrical text - the essays collected here reconsider the pervasive influence of Italian culture literature and traditions on early modern English drama. The volume focuses strongly on Shakespeare but also includes contributions on Marston Middleton Ford Brome Aretino and other early modern dramatists. The pervasive influence of Italian culture literature and traditions on the European Renaissance it is argued here offers a valuable opportunity to study the intertextual dynamics that contributed to the construction of the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatrical canon. In the specific area of theatrical discourse the drama of the early modern period is characterized by the systematic appropriation of a complex Italian iconology exploited both as the origin of poetry and art and as the site of intrigue vice and political corruption. Focusing on the construction and the political implications of the dramatic text this collection analyses early modern English drama within the context of three categories of cultural and ideological appropriation: the rewriting remaking and refashioning of the English theatrical tradition in its iconic thematic historical and literary aspects.