The Poetics of Imitation in the Italian Theatre of the Renaissance

Salvatore DiMaria is a professor in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Tennessee.

Preface


Chapter I. Imitation: The link between past and present


1. The Humanists turn to the Ancients


2. From the Classical stage to the theater of Renaissance


3. The poetics of the new theater


Chapter II. Machiavelli’s Mandragola


1. The characters: imitation vs. source


2. New characters


3. Machiavellian morality


Chapter III. Clizia. Form stage to stage


1. The sons


2. The fathers


3. The wives


4. A Machiavellian perspective


Chapter IV. Cecchi’s Assiuolo: An apian imitation


1. A contaminatio of sources


2. Ambrogio: An original amator senex


3. Oretta’s immorality as a reflection of the times


Chapter V. Groto’s Emilia: Fiction meets reality


1. From the sources to the adaptation


2. The stage pretense of realism undermined


3. Erifila: a Venetian courtesan.


Chapter VI. Gli duoi fratelli rivali. Della Porta adapts Bandello’s prose narrative to the stage


1. The source’s King vs. the play’s Viceroy


2. Eufranone vs. Lionato


3. The women


4. New characters and the comic element


Chapter VII. Orbecche: Giraldi’s imitation of his own prose narrative


1. The plot


2. Orbecche and the question of womanhood


3. Sulmone vs. Malecche: The debate on kingly prerogatives


4. Machiavellian princeship anchored to religious morality


Chapter VIII. Dolce’s Marianna: From history to the stage


1. The historical source


2. Josephus’ Herod vs. Dolce’s Erode


3. Mariamme vs Marianna


4. Erode and the theater audience


Conclusion


Endnotes


Bibliography