Italian Culture in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

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.

Contents: Introduction: appropriating Italy: towards a new approach to Renaissance drama, Michele Marrapodi; Part I Rewriting Italian Prose and Drama: Pastoral jazz from the writ to the liberty, Louise George Clubb; Harlequin/harlotry in Henry IV, Part One, Frances K. Barasch; The mirror of all Christian courtiers: Castiglione's Cortegiano as a source for Henry V, Adam Max Cohen; Shakespeare's romantic Italy: novelistic, theatrical and cultural transactions in the Comedies, Michele Marrapodi; Virtuosity and mimesis in the Commedia dell'arte and Hamlet, Robert Henke; Gascoigne's Supposes: Englishing Italian 'error' and adversarial reading practices, Jill Phillips Ingram. Part II Remaking Italian Myths and Culture: 'At the cubiculo': Shakespeare's problems with Italian language and culture, Keir Elam; Between myth and fact: The Merchant of Venice as docu-drama, J.R. Mulryne; Harington, Troilus and Cressida, and the poets' war, Lisa Hopkins; Shakespeare's dreams, sprites, and the recognition game, Nina daVinci Nichols; Re-make/re-model: Marston's The Malcontent and Guarinian tragicomedy, Jason Lawrence. Part III Refashioning Ideology: Shakespeare and Venice, John Drakakis; 'As if a man were author of himself': the (re-)fashioning of the Oedipal hero from Plutarch's Martius to Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Claudia Corti; 'The strongest oaths are straw': ritual inversion in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Victoria Scala Wood; Learning to spy: The Tempest as Italianate disguised-duke play, Michael J. Redmond; The courtesan revisited: Thomas Middleton, Pietro Aretino, and sex-phobic criticism, Celia R. Daileader. Part IV Coda: The music of words. From madrigal to drama and beyond: Shakespeare foreshadowing an operatic technique, Giorgio Melchiori; Select bibliography; Index.