Shakespeare, Italy, and Intertextuality (review)

Michele Marrapodi identifies this collection as "a rather different version" (x) of the earlier volume published in Italy, Shakespeare and Intertextuality (2000), and we find that the relationship of early modern Italian texts to their English counterparts continues to generate a remarkably broad area of study. Marrapodi has previously gathered scholars together for Shakespeare's Italy (1993), The Italian World of English Renaissance Drama (1998), and Italian Studies in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (1999), but it should be noted that Louise George Clubb's Italian Drama in Shakespeare's Time (1989) also remains a central foundation to the field. Marrapodi recognizes that Clubb's book is a "reference point for intertextual and comparative research" (76) and no less than six contributors to this volume cite her work.

In this newest incarnation, Shakespeare, Italy, and Intertextuality, Marrapodi and company contribute sixteen articles, together with an introduction and afterword, arranged under four main themes: "Theory and Practice," "Culture and Tradition," "Text and Ideology," and "Stage and Spectacle." The book's organization is accommodating, especially with Robert Miola's opening chapter, "Seven Types of Intertextuality." The collection can stand alone in its contribution to the field of intertextual studies; however, continued microscopic focus on this particular subject may run the risk of rendering the material ephemeral. While some chapters shed glorious light on the complex intertextual relationship of Shakespeare's works to classical, medieval, and early modern culture originating from the Italian peninsula, others border on the frivolous. The threat of meticulous readings and speculative connections may eventually diminish the great possibilities of this area of study as a critical concept.

As editor, no one is more qualified than Marrapodi to resume the inquiry set forth in the previous collections. He commences the book by offering up the principles of poetic imitation in the Renaissance such as imitato, "an aesthetic principle of literary production" in poetic imitation, and its counterpart, contaminato," involving the refashioning of plots and motifs taken from Greek and Roman New Comedy [and] the mediation of narrative sources" (1). According to Marrapodi, "the two main areas of retrievable sources [consist of] influences and repetitions" (2). With such a clear focus set out by Marrapodi and Miola from the outset, it is unfortunate that a number of the contributions remain inconsistent in their "disentangling [of] retrievable sources."

The most compelling chapters broaden the intertextual focus to include cultural as well as textual relationships between Elizabethan England and the idea of Italy. The essays by Marrapodi and his frequent contributors such as Miola, Keir Elam, and Michael Redmond demonstrate how textual interactions require cultural as well as thematic consideration. Miola's "Seven Types of Intertextuality," including revision, translation, quotation, sources, conventions and configurations, genres, and, finally, paralogues, stands out as an effective framing device not only for this book, but also for the complex field of intertextual studies. Elam's "English Bodies in Italian Habits" takes into consideration the "promiscuous and indiscriminant" (27) mixing of foreign dress and behavior in Elizabethan England. Elam focuses on the popularity of fencing manuals to proscribe certain Italianate behaviors. Although the reading of dueling and fencing is a relatively new and appealing concept in the further pursuit of English–Italian connections, the technical nature of the sport/exploit must also be acknowledged in future endeavors. Finally, Redmond's well-organized contribution discusses the cliché of the disguised duke in "Politics of Plot: Measure for Measure and the Italianate Disguised Duke Play." That Italian political failures are highlighted by revealing "how not to govern a state" (161) demonstrates the prevailing "us versus them" attitude of the English throughout the collection.

Of further note is Giorgio Melchiori's "Shakespeare in the Bottega: Art Works, Apocrypha and the Stage," which compares the fine arts of the Renaissance with playwriting in Elizabethan England, where individual artists and authors often included contributions from apprentices. What follows is a fascinating examination of how many young contributors literally have a hand in the making of great works. Also, in "Shakespeare's Dramatizations of...