Theatre of the English and Italian Renaissance

275 Pages·1991·25.167 MB·English

by  J. R. Mulryne, Margaret Shewring (eds.)

THEATRE OF THE ENGLISH
AND ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
Theatre of the
English and Italian
Renaissance
Edited by
J. R. MULRYNE
Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies and Chairman,
Graduate School of Renaissance Studies, University of Warwick
and
MARGARET SHEWRING
Lecturer in Theatre Studies and Course DirectoT, Graduate School
of Renaissance Studies, University of Warwick
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-21738-0 ISBN 978-1-349-21736-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21736-6
© J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring 1991
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1991
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1991
ISBN 978-0-312-06771-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Theatre of the English and Italian Renaissance / edited by J. R.
Mulryne and Margaret Shewring.
p. cm.
Revised papers from a Seminar on 'English and ltalian Renaissance
Theatre' held at the University of Warwick, May 1987.
Inc1udes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-06771-7
1. Italian drama-To 17OQ-History and criticism-Congresses.
2. English drama-Early modem and Elizabethan, 1500-1600-History
and criticism-Congresses. 3. Theater-ltaly-History-16th
century-Congresses. 4. Theater-England-History-16th century
-Congresses. I.Mulryne. J.R. 11. Shewring, Margaret.
111. Seminar on 'English and Italian Renaissance Theatre' (1987:
University ofWarwick)
PQ4139.T54 1991
352'.409-dc20 91-21021
CIP
Contents
List of Plates vii
Preface viii
Notes on the Contributors x
PARTONE Performance and Playing Places
of the Italian Renaissance
1 The Changing Scene: Plays and Playhouses in the
Italian Renaissance
Michael Anderson 3
2 Scripted Theatre and the Commedia dell' Arte
Richard Andrews 21
3 The Theatrical Activities of Palla di Lorenzo Strozzi
in Lyon in the 1540s
ludith Bryce 55
PARTTWO The Italian Renaissance Connection:
Ben Jonson
4 Ben Jonson's Masques and Italian Culture
lohn Peacock 73
5 Jonson's Venice
Brian Parker 95
6 Aretino' s Comedies and the Italian 'Erasmian'
Connection in Shakespeare and Jonson
Christopher Cairns 113
PART THREE The Italian Renaissance Connection:
Lyly and Shakespeare
7 ParalleIs between Italian and English Courtly Plays
in the Sixteenth Century: Carlo Turco and John Lyly
Noemi Messora 141
v
vi Contents
8 Courtier and Courtesy: Castiglione, Lyly and
Shakespeare' s Two Gentlemen o[ VeroM
M. C. Bradbrook 161
9 Shakespeare' s 'Verismo' and the ItaIian
Popular Tradition
Hugh M. Richmond 179
10 Honest Iago and the Lusty Moor:
the Humanistic Drama of honestas/voluptas
in a Shakespearean Context
Maristella de Panizza Lorch 204
11 Postscript: EIizabethan Dramatists and ltaly
Leo Salingar 221
Further Reading 238
Index 245
List of Plates
Following p. 164
1. Frontispiece to Jacob Trechael's edition of Terence (Lyons,
1493).
2. Frontispiece to Simon de Luere's edition of Terence (Venice,
1497).
3. Engraving by Jacques Callot of the first Intermedio for lA
Liberatione di Tirreno in the Uffizi Palace, Florence (1616).
4. Plan of a Roman theatre in Giocondo's edition of Vitruvius
(Venice, 1511).
5. Plan, perspective and section of a Roman theatre in Cesariano' s
edition of Vitruvius (Corno, 1521).
6. From Barbaro's edition of Vitruvius (Venice, 1556): Elevation
of part of the scaenae frons of a Roman theatre.
7. Plan of the theatre erected in the Campidoglio, Rome (1513).
8. The loggia of Alvise Cornaro's palace in Padua constructed by
Fa1conetto (1524).
9. Scene from a Plautine Comedy (Venice, 1518).
10. A floating 'theatre' in Venice (1564).
11. From Sebastiano Serlio, Il secondo !ibro d'architettura (Paris,
1545): (a) Groundplan for the design of a theatre and its scene;
(b) Perspective of a scene for comedy.
12. Baldassare Land' s perspective of the Piazza Signoria,
Florence.
vii
Preface
This collection of essays takes its origin from a Seminar on 'English
and ltalian Renaissance Theatre' held at the University of Warwick
in May 1987. The Seminar was arranged by the Graduate School of
Renaissance Studies and the Department of Italian of the University,
and was supported by the European Humanities Research Centre.
Each of the papers originally given at that Seminar has been
thoroughly revised and rewritten for inclusion here, and a number
of the essays were specially commissioned in order to extend the
range and enhance the coherence of the Seminar papers. The editors
are grateful for helpful commentary to a number of Seminar partici
pants including Professor Marie-Therese Jones-Davies (Sorbonne),
Professor Remington Patterson (Columbia University, New York),
Dr.Lois Potter (University of Leicester), Ms Jennifer Lorch and Mrs.
Judy Rawson (Department of ltalian, University of Warwick).
It is probably true to say that the relationships between Italian
theatre of the Renaissance and the English theatre of the same
or of a slightly later period have not been exhaustively studied
because of academic separation between specialists of the relevant
disciplines. There are, of course, notable exceptions including, for
example, the work of Leo Salingar. But generally speaking the
compartmentalisation characteristic of much academic life has
tended to diminish the attention given to relationships between
the two theatres. The Warwick Seminar, and this book, were
conceived as a contribution to improving interchange between
the relevant disciplines. Contributors include scholars from a range
of academic fields including English Literature, Theatre Studies,
Italian and French.
The essays collected here do not attempt source or influence
study of the familiar kind. They seek rather to illuminate the
repertoire of each country' s theatre by seeing the theatre of the
English Renaissance in the overall context of Italian theatrical
modes and thought. A first section considers performance and
playing places, together with a specific example of the presentation
of Italian theatre abroad, on this occasion in France. A second
section identifies some features of what is probably the most
direct connection between the English and Italian theatres of the
viii
Preface ix
Renaissance, Ben Jonson' s acceptance of and resistance to Italian
theories and cultural practice. Even here, however, Christopher
Cairns finds it convenient to bracket Jonson with Shakespeare,
and the book' s third section broadens this interest by studying
the ltalian connection in the work of Shakespeare and Lyly. The
book is completed by Leo Salingar' s postscript, drawing together
some of the common themes of the foregoing essays and extending
the range to take in Marston' s Malcontent.
The coHection is intended to interest the non-specialist reader as
weH as scholars in the field. We have therefore provided translations
of Italian quotations. We have also included lists of further reading
which may assist the non-specialist in obtaining a wider view of our
subject. We have not sought to impose a rigorous standardisation
on quotations from works in English or Italian but we have used
the Oxford edition of The Complete Works of Shakespeare unless there
is a statement to the contrary.
J. R. MULRYNE and MARGARET SHEWRING
University of Warwick
Notes on the Contributors
Michael Anderson is Professor of Drama at the University of Kent.
With Alessandra Anderson he is editing a volume of documents
relating to the theatre of the Italian Renaissance.
Richard Andrews is Professor of Italian at the University of Leeds.
He has a major acadernic interest in Italian and other theatre, and
has translated and written on Commedia deli' Arte, on other Italian
drama, on Calvino and on the modern theatre.
Muriel Bradbrook was Professor of English at Cambridge during
1968-76, and has held visiting professorships in Japan, Kuwait and
the USA. She is Honorary Professor of the Graduate School of
Renaissance Studies, University of Warwick, and holds honorary
doctorates from the Universities of Liverpool, Sussex, London and
Gothenburg and from Smith College and Kenyon College, USA. She
has published over twenty books on Shakespeare and Elizabethan
Drama and on modern authors.
Judith Bryce is Lecturer in Italian at the University of Hull. She has
published articles on modern Italian authors, but the main area of
her research is sixteenth-century Florence. She is currently at work
on a study of the relations between the Florentine Academy and the
University of Pisa in the 1540s.
Christopher Cairns is Reader in Italian Drama at the University
College of Wales, Aberystwyth, having forrnerly lectured in Italian
there. His research has included Italian history and literature of the
Renaissance, and now centres on Renaissance comedy and festival.
His books include Domenico Bollani, Bishop 0/ Brescia ... (1976) and
most recently, Pietro Aretino and the Republic 0/ Venice ... (1985). He
is currently preparing a critical edition of Aretino's Ragionamento
della corti.
Maristella de Panizza Lorch is Professor of Italian at Columbia
University, New York, and Executive Director of the Center
x