Shakespeare, Italy and intertextuality [Paperback]

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.'

1. Introduction: Intertextualizing Shakespeare's text - Michelle Marrapodi

Part I: Theory and practice

2. Seven types of intertextuality - Robert S. Miola

3. English bodies in Italian habits - Keir Alam

4. Shakespeare and Plutarch: intertextuality in action - Alessandro Serpieri

5. 'Voil? la belle mort': the crisis of the aristocracy in Troilus and Cressida - Mario Domenichelli

Part II: Culture and tradition

6. Beyond the Reformation: Italian intertexts of the ransom plot in Measure for Measure - Michelle Marrapodi

7. 'The story is extant and writ in very choice Italian': Shakespeare's dramatizations of Cinthio - Jason Lawrence

8. Intertextual transformations: the novella as mediator between Italian and English Renaissance drama - Charlotte Pressler

9. Shakespeare's Italian intertexts: The Taming of the/a Shrew - Fernando Cioni

Part III: Text and ideology

10. 'What news on the Rialto': luxury, sodomy, and miscegenation in The Merchant of Venice - Anthony G. Barthelmy

11. Othello italicized: xenophobia and the erosion of tragedy - Pamela Allen Brown

12. The politics of plot: Measure for Measure and the Italianate disguised duke play - Michael J. Redmond

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

Part IV: Stage and spectacle

14. Cleopatra's barge and Antony's body: Italian sources and English theatre - J. lsA