La sostanza di cui son fatti i sogni: Il grande teatro di William Shakespeare (Italian Edition)

Gli autori cristiani potrebbero anche aver voluto distinguere i loro scritti dai testi pagani scritti su rotoli. La storia del libro continua a svilupparsi con la graduale transizione dal rotolo al codex , spostandosi dal Vicino Oriente del II - II millennio a. Fino al II secolo d. All'arrivo del Medioevo , circa mezzo millennio dopo, i codici - di foggia e costruzione in tutto simili al libro moderno - rimpiazzarono il rotolo e furono composti principalmente di pergamena.

Anche nei suoi distici, Marziale continua a citare il codex: Dal II secolo a. Nel mondo antico non godette di molta fortuna a causa del prezzo elevato rispetto a quello del papiro. Il libro in forma di rotolo consisteva in fogli preparati da fibre di papiro phylire disposte in uno strato orizzontale lo strato che poi riceveva la scrittura sovrapposto ad uno strato verticale la faccia opposta. La scrittura era effettuata su colonne, generalmente sul lato del papiro che presentava le fibre orizzontali. Non si hanno molte testimonianze sui rotoli di pergamena tuttavia la loro forma era simile a quella dei libri in papiro.

Gli inchiostri neri utilizzati erano a base di nerofumo e gomma arabica. Dal II secolo d. La vecchia forma libraria a rotolo scompare in ambito librario. In forma notevolmente differente permane invece in ambito archivistico. Nel Medioevo si fanno strada alcune innovazioni: Questo mezzo, permettendo l'accelerazione della produzione delle copie di testi contribuisce alla diffusione del libro e della cultura.

Altri suoi distici rivelano che tra i regali fatti da Marziale c'erano copie di Virgilio , di Cicerone e Livio. Le parole di Marziale danno la distinta impressione che tali edizioni fossero qualcosa di recentemente introdotto. Sono stati rinvenuti "taccuini" contenenti fino a dieci tavolette. Nel tempo, furono anche disponibili modelli di lusso fatti con tavolette di avorio invece che di legno. Ai romani va il merito di aver compiuto questo passo essenziale, e devono averlo fatto alcuni decenni prima della fine del I secolo d.

Il grande vantaggio che offrivano rispetto ai rolli era la capienza, vantaggio che sorgeva dal fatto che la facciata esterna del rotolo era lasciata in bianco, vuota. Il codice invece aveva scritte entrambe le facciate di ogni pagina, come in un libro moderno. La prima pagina porta il volto del poeta. I codici di cui parlava erano fatti di pergamena ; nei distici che accompagnavano il regalo di una copia di Omero , per esempio, Marziale la descrive come fatta di "cuoio con molte pieghe".

Ma copie erano anche fatte di fogli di papiro. Quando i greci ed i romani disponevano solo del rotolo per scrivere libri, si preferiva usare il papiro piuttosto che la pergamena. I ritrovamenti egiziani ci permettono di tracciare il graduale rimpiazzo del rotolo da parte del codice.

Fece la sua comparsa in Egitto non molto dopo il tempo di Marziale, nel II secolo d. Il suo debutto fu modesto. A tutt'oggi sono stati rinvenuti 1. Verso il d. I ritrovamenti egiziani gettano luce anche sulla transizione del codex dal papiro alla pergamena. Sebbene gli undici codici della Bibbia datati in quel secolo fossero papiracei, esistono circa 18 codici dello stesso secolo con scritti pagani e quattro di questi sono in pergamena. Non ne scegliemmo alcuno, ma ne raccogliemmo altri otto per i quali gli diedi dracme in conto.

Il codex tanto apprezzato da Marziale aveva quindi fatto molta strada da Roma. Nel terzo secolo, quando tali codici divennero alquanto diffusi, quelli di pergamena iniziarono ad essere popolari.

In breve, anche in Egitto , la fonte mondiale del papiro , il codice di pergamena occupava una notevole quota di mercato. Sono tutti di pergamena, edizioni eleganti, scritti in elaborata calligrafia su sottili fogli di pergamena. Per tali edizioni di lusso il papiro era certamente inadatto. In almeno un'area, la giurisprudenza romana , il codex di pergamena veniva prodotto sia in edizioni economiche che in quelle di lusso. Le ragioni erano buone: La caduta dell'Impero romano nel V secolo d. Il papiro divenne difficile da reperire a causa della mancanza di contatti con l' Antico Egitto e la pergamena , che per secoli era stata tenuta in secondo piano, divenne il materiale di scrittura principale.

I monasteri continuarono la tradizione scritturale latina dell' Impero romano d'Occidente. La tradizione e lo stile dell' Impero romano predominava ancora, ma gradualmente emerse la cultura del libro medievale. I monaci irlandesi introdussero la spaziatura tra le parole nel VII secolo. L'innovazione fu poi adottata anche nei Paesi neolatini come l'Italia , anche se non divenne comune prima del XII secolo. Si ritiene che l'inserimento di spazi tra le parole abbia favorito il passaggio dalla lettura semi-vocalizzata a quella silenziosa.

Prima dell'invenzione e della diffusione del torchio tipografico , quasi tutti i libri venivano copiati a mano, il che li rendeva costosi e relativamente rari. I piccoli monasteri di solito possedevano al massimo qualche decina di libri, forse qualche centinaio quelli di medie dimensioni. Il processo della produzione di un libro era lungo e laborioso. Infine, il libro veniva rilegato dal rilegatore [26].

Le copertine erano fatte di legno e ricoperte di cuoio. Esistono testi scritti in rosso o addirittura in oro, e diversi colori venivano utilizzati per le miniature. A volte la pergamena era tutta di colore viola e il testo vi era scritto in oro o argento per esempio, il Codex Argenteus. Per tutto l'Alto Medioevo i libri furono copiati prevalentemente nei monasteri, uno alla volta. Il sistema venne gestito da corporazioni laiche di cartolai , che produssero sia materiale religioso che profano [28].

Nelle prime biblioteche pubbliche i libri venivano spesso incatenati ad una libreria o scrivania per impedirne il furto. Questi libri furono chiamati libri catenati. Vedi illustrazione a margine. L' ebraismo ha mantenuto in vita l'arte dello scriba fino ad oggi. Anche gli arabi produssero e rilegarono libri durante il periodo medievale islamico , sviluppando tecniche avanzate di calligrafia araba , miniatura e legatoria. Col metodo di controllo, solo "gli autori potevano autorizzare le copie, e questo veniva fatto in riunioni pubbliche, in cui il copista leggeva il testo ad alta voce in presenza dell'autore, il quale poi la certificava come precisa".

In xilografia , un'immagine a bassorilievo di una pagina intera veniva intarsiata su tavolette di legno, inchiostrata e usata per stampare le copie di quella pagina. Questo metodo ebbe origine in Cina , durante la Dinastia Han prima del a. I monaci o altri che le scrivevano, venivano pagati profumatamente. I primi libri stampati, i singoli fogli e le immagini che furono creati prima del in Europa, sono noti come incunaboli. Folio 14 recto del Vergilius romanus che contiene un ritratto dell'autore Virgilio. Da notare la libreria capsa , il leggio ed il testo scritto senza spazi in capitale rustica.

Leggio con libri catenati , Biblioteca Malatestiana di Cesena. Incunabolo del XV secolo.

The Nuovo Theatre

Si noti la copertina lavorata, le borchie d'angolo e i morsetti. Insegnamenti scelti di saggi buddisti , il primo libro stampato con caratteri metallici mobili, Le macchine da stampa a vapore diventarono popolari nel XIX secolo. Queste macchine potevano stampare 1. Le macchine tipografiche monotipo e linotipo furono introdotte verso la fine del XIX secolo.

Nel [34] nasce il Progetto Gutenberg , lanciato da Michael S. Hart , la prima biblioteca di versioni elettroniche liberamente riproducibili di libri stampati. I libri a stampa sono prodotti stampando ciascuna imposizione tipografica su un foglio di carta. Le varie segnature vengono rilegate per ottenere il volume. L'apertura delle pagine, specialmente nelle edizioni in brossura , era di solito lasciata al lettore fino agli anni sessanta del XX secolo , mentre ora le segnature vengono rifilate direttamente dalla tipografia. This is true mostly in earlier texts; as time passes, negative tones diminish.

In the first years of the Restoration the voice of Bardolatry was not yet tuned into a uniformly harmonic tone of praise. A good example of this attitude towards Shakespeare can be found in John Dryden, whom I will take here as a case study. In the Introduction of Shakespeare: Munro, The Shakespeare allusion book London: Ralli, A history of Shakespearean criticism London: Dobson, The making of the national poet Oxford: Dryden, All for Love London: The preface to the adaptation of The Tempest by Davenant and Dryden, written by the latter, begins by acknowledging the Shakespearean fatherhood of the source text and manifesting veneration and admiration for the man: In the Preface of All for Love Dryden invokes the heights of flattery, condensing in a few lines many of the central tenets of Bardolatry: Before going this far he is careful to praise the Bard by a comparison with the great poet and playwright Aeschylus, who was similarly venerated and revered in Greece as was Shakespeare in England.

The peritext of Troilus and Cressida also includes the essay On the Grounds of Criticism in Tragedy, which evinces a similar co-existence of praise and blame for Shakespeare. The faults Dryden ascribes to the Bard are material ones connected to language, plot, and decorum, but often Shakespeare is not the one to blame. The blame lies on the time he lived in or on those who handed down his text. The final result of this attitude is general praise of the Bard as creator, author, poet, genius on one hand, and critiques on specific issues of specific plays on the other: However, the overall trend seems positive, as Dryden, like many others, ends in praise: This dualistic attitude is quite widespread and often present in the same author.

No one ever explains how such a perfect and great creator can create in such an imperfect way. Later on, adaptations printed in the eighteenth century show the embryonic beginnings of a new approach to the language of Shakespeare. The process of editing that at the beginning of the Restoration cuts, paraphrases, and modifies the language of Shakespeare without rules or common directions starts to move with a more orderly pace. The flattening of the complexity and richness of the poetic and philosophic Shakespearean polysemy which was inevitably a consequence of Restoration editors is seen less and less.

A new sensibility towards the Shakespearean word rises with Cibber, Granville, Burnaby, Bullock and Philips, and changes the idea of the adaptation. From now on adaptation no longer modifies or heavily alters the language with an aim to paraphrase and clarify it. Though at an elementary and imperfect stage, this new 33 W. Dryden, The Tempest London: Dryden, All for Love.

Dryden, Troilus and Cressida London: The contrast between Shakespeare and his language slowly disappears; the two are considered as elements forming a fruitful counterpoint, and finally as one harmonic musical texture of total praise: In the last group of peritexts, composed by prologues and epilogues, Bardolatry appears to be stronger than in the previous group. There is no trace of blame for what Shakespeare created.

The group is characterized by a widespread presence of religious and sacred tones which can also be found in some prefatorial peritexts. He, Monarch-like, gave those his subjects law, And is that Nature which they paint and draw. The ghost of the Bard himself speaks: With these praises Shakespeare is heightened into a dimension of eternity, of a time disconnected from reality.

Continuing a tradition that grew stronger as time passed, at the end of the last century Harold Bloom asserted an idolatry not only for the author but also for one of his characters: I do not suggest that we substitute the worship of Hamlet, but Hamlet is the only secular rival to his greatest precursors in personality. Like them, he seems not to be just a literary or dramatic character.

After Jesus, Hamlet is the most cited figure in Western consciousness; no one prays to him, but no one evades him for long either. If we could freely move in the almost eighty year-span of time which saw the creation of these thirty adaptations, we would see more easily how Shakespeare is raised to the role of a cultural hero, a national poet who can challenge and defeat continental, neo-classical rules. He is not only dramatist, but also poet, genius, nature, natural genius, fancy, imagination, and much more: Marsden, The re-imagined text Lexington: Seuil, Lejeune, Philippe, Le pacte autobiographique Paris: Seuil, Marsden, Jean I.

The Critical Heritage London: The reasons for such notoriety lay in the clash between the early-modern aspiration toward literary innovation, on the one hand, and the Aristotelian notions of genre codification, on the other. Following in the wake of the dramatic pastoral tradition originating in the sketchy eclogue-style drama of the late fifteenth century, Pastor fido was meant to set the highest example of a modern five-act pastoral play featuring a tragicomic pattern.

Needless to say, strictly Aristotelian academicians strongly opposed every spurious dramatic form and mockingly labelled pastoral tragicomedy as mongrel and lacking classical decorum: The play was first published in England in in order to meet the growing interest arising from the sophisticated environment of the Elizabethan court. Indeed, the pastoral became a landmark of Jacobean court drama and Queen Anna herself exploited the theatre as a venue for allegorical celebrations of power.

Not only was pastoral drama politically much safer than tragedy: Even more threatening than the two slanderers is a group of low-life charlatans who take advantage of the inborn innocence of the inhabitants of Arcadia: Pistophoenax, perhaps the most dangerous of all the outsiders, wears an alluring mask to cover his deformed face, but is stopped by the two elderly shepherds before he can question the ancient rites of Pan and break the chain of religious zeal that holds Arcadian society together. Although the pastoral community is eventually saved from chaos and restored to its former state of harmony and peace, the disquieting presence of the outsiders among the shepherds leaves the audience with an unsettling sense of anxiety.

However, unlike the pastoral setting, the tragicomic formula rapidly took hold in the commercial theatre of the Stuart period, whose political tensions and ideological ambiguities were well- represented by the sensational twists and dizzying reversals typical of the Fletcherian canon. The plot of The Faithful Shepherdess revolves around the theme of chastity, embodied by two female characters: This somehow reinforced the aristocratic scope of tragicomic pastoral theatre, which ended up becoming so intertwined with the Caroline court that when the Civil War broke out in the Parliament passed a bill to close down the theatres in order to prevent social mutiny while depriving the crown of a useful tool for political propaganda.

Tasso, Guarini, Daniel, ed. Elizabeth Story Donno New York: Binghamton, , pp. Laurence Michel New haven: And now newly translated out of the originall London: Raworth, , in Il Pastor fido in Inghilterra, con il testo della traduzione secentesca di Sir Richard Fanshawe, ed. Clarendon Press, , pp. Fletcher, John, The faithful shepherdess, in Beaumont and Fletcher, vol.

Shakespeare, 20 domande per conoscere il Bardo morto 400 anni fa

Fisher Unwin Ltd, c. Guarini, Battista, Il pastor fido, ed. University of Pennsylvania Press, Clubb, L. John Russell Brown Bologna: Il Mulino, , pp. Yale University Press, , pp. Ashgate, , pp. Liguori, , pp. Henke, Robert, Pastoral transformations: Macmillan, , pp. Shakespeare and after London: Routledge, , pp. Cambridge University Press, , pp. Olschki, Pieri, Marzia, La scena boschereccia nel rinascimento italiano Padova: Liviana Editrice, Potter, L. Centro Studi sul teatro medievale e rinascimentale, , pp. Royalist literature, , Cambridge: University of Wales Press, , pp.

University of Toronto Press, , pp. A cultural politics of translation Cambridge: Albeit the world think Machevill is dead, Yet was his soul but flown beyond the Alps; And, now the Guise is dead, is come from France, To view this land, and frolic with his friends. Eliot, Selected essays London: Woodbridge, Money and the age of Shakespeare: Shell, Money, language and thought Baltimore: Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels Frankfurt am Main: This allegorical treatment of history also contributes to changing the classic, Aristotelian notion of dramatic genres, in particular the distinction between tragedy and comedy.

Tamburlaine, besides, overturns the stereotypes connected to the image of the Wheel of Fortune: What does this imply? In early modern England the Jews played a paradoxical role: While being instruments of this new economy, the Jews were at the same time characterized as parasites. Despite discrimination, therefore, Shylock claims that, before being a Jew, he is a human being: Worthen, Shakespeare and the force of modern performance Cambridge: Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews New York: Schiff, From stereotype to metaphor: Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, ed.

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? Shylock, who as a usurer is the symbol per excellence of avarice and greed, highlights what lies at the core of the ethics of the gift: Failing to do so and obviously he should fail , he must then suffer the worst punishment for his identity, that of losing all his wealth and of converting to Christianity.

From a theatrical point of view, not unlike Barabas, Shylock is neither a martyr nor a tragic figure: I never heard a passion so confused, So strange, outragious, and so variable, As the dog Jew did utter in the streets: Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats! My ducats and my daughter! XIV, and see J. Freinkel, The merchant of Venice: If the tragedy of the modern world consists in simulation, the theatre assumes, on the contrary, the function of revealing the truth behind the mimesis while demystifying the power struggles prevailing in the society. The Merchant of Venice displays a similar context and analogous premises, but raises more problematic issues.

McAdam, The irony of identity: La politica come arte del rimedio Roma: Ozark, The merchant of Venice: Melchiori, Introduzione to Shakespeare: Le commedie romantiche Milano: Bassanio becomes thus the hero who gives and hazards all he has Antonio included. It is thanks to her wit so convincingly used and performed in the final trial that the play turns to its almost apparent happy ending; and that is not surprising: Netzloff, The lead casket: Mallin, Jewish invader and the soul of the state: The merchant of Venice and science fiction movies, ed.

Christian and Jew in The merchant of Venice Chicago: Suhrkamp, ; English edn.: The origin of German tragic drama London: Donzelli, Grady, Hugh, Shakespeare and modernity: Studies in Early Modern Reification. Hiscock, Andrew, The uses of this world: Holmer, Joan Ozark, The merchant of Venice: Palgrave Macmillan, Hunter, George K.

Kellogg, Stuart, Literary visions of homosexuality London: Routledge, Kernan, Alvin, Two renaissance mythmakers: Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson Baltimore: Parker, John, The aesthetics of Antichrist: Macmillan, Worthen, William B. The play seemed to serve as a lens through which people filtered their experience of social life and social change, through which they negotiated their responses to events and developments that disturbed or excited them, and, on occasion, into which they sought to retreat from a society that was changing in ways they considered to be unmanageable, if not at times intolerable.

Tuttavia, ad affascinare il pubblico vittoriano, che ne riconosce la perfetta incarnazione dei propri ideali - almeno sulla carta - liberali, sono soprattutto Portia e Shylock. Wealthy and uncontrolled by either husband or father, learned, independent, dressed as a man and making her petition in a court of law, Portia held a magnetic attraction for those who aspired to the freedom she possessed [cfr: Ma Irving sembra assolutamente convinto: Proprio durante questo viaggio di ristoro, Irving sarebbe rimasto profondamente affascinato dalla figura di un ebreo Levantino incontrato per caso a Tunisi: Un mese di prove, debutto previsto per sabato Primo Novembre: Questo Merchant doveva sorprendere la platea del Lyceum, proporsi come una seria occasione di riflessione, ricorrendo a qualcosa di assolutamente originale.

La scelta del repertorio e la cura della messinscena giocano certo un ruolo fondamentale in questo processo di edificazione morale; da qui il recupero e la rilettura della drammaturgia shakespeariana, perseguito su diversi fronti: Marshall, anche una sontuosa edizione completa data alle stampe nel Non poteva essere diversamente: Alto e snello, aristocratico nella figura ma rigido nel portamento, aveva non pochi difetti di pronuncia: In producing The Merchant of Venice I have endeavoured to avoid hampering the natural action of the piece with any unnecessary embellishment; but have tried not to omit any accessory which might heighten the effects.

I have availed myself of every resource at my command to present the play in a manner acceptable to our audience. Irving sembra operare per selezione, costruendo una misurata partitura da cui emergono le linee chiave della sua interpretazione del testo: He comes forward as a man between fifty and sixty years of age, infirm enough to need the support of a stick, with an iron-gray wisp of beard. Pale and lean visaged, his wisp of grey beard threaded with streaks of black, he leaned upon a stick, is head slightly bowed, so that normally his glance was upwards and askance.

His dress was sober and picturesque… Gone was the red hat or red wig; in its place he wore a tightly fitting black cap down the front of which ran a bar of yellow suggesting a racial badge… The poise and dignity of his bearing was that of a Levantine Jew, an alien in Venice and therefore more saturated with Judaism than those of his race who had rubbed shoulders with Europeans. From the outset his manner suggested that Shylock kept his household and himself apart from Western custom and thought- isolated in its habits by choice and force of race.

Nel raccontare la tragedia di Shylock Irving procede per contrasti, rintracciando sapientemente nella mescolanza di generi un aspetto predominante della sua messinscena: Fin qui niente di nuovo: Un veloce cambio viene annunciato dal repentino abbassarsi e alzarsi del sipario: The stage emptied; ripples of laughter died away: He knocked at the door three times, slowly. There was no answer. With greater deliberation he knocked again, three times. Then, raising his lantern to search the darkened upper windows, across his features came a look of dumb and complete despair.

The Spectator, 8 Nov. Part of the crowd of spectators point and jeer as two Jews enter. One of the Jews brushes against Gratiano who angrily resents it. Solanio and Salarino interpose and the Jews retires upstage right, joining the other Jew. While this has been going on, some of the crowd at the back- all of whom have been watching the foregoing- take the opportunity to jeer at three Jews who are amongst them; the guards interpose across the barrier, and with their halberds, gently forced the three Jews into a corner by themselves right.

The rest of the crowd now keep apart from them. When Shylock grasped the severity of his sentence, his eyelids became heavy as thus he was hardly able to lift them and his eyes became lustreless and vacant. The proud rejection of insult and injustice lit up his face for a moment, enough for the audience to feel a strange relief in knowing that, in that glance, Shylock had triumphed… as he reached the door and put on his hand towards it, he was seized with a crumpling convulsion.

It was but a momentary weakness indicated with great subtlety. Then, drawing himself up to his full height once more, Shylock bent his gaze defiantly upon the court and stalked out. Bickers and Son, Craig, Edward G. Dent and Sons, Craig, Edith; St. Victor Gollancz, Craig, Edward G. Holroyd, Michael, A strange eventful history: Irving, Henry; Marshall, Frank A. Mondadori, Lelyveld, Toby, Shylock on the stage Cleveland: Shakespearian players and performances Cambridge, MA: Stoker, Bram, Personal reminiscences of Henry Irving, 2 vol.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, there had been no reason to doubt that Shakespeare was the real author of the plays, mainly because they were perceived as the unrefined product of a man with no particular skill or education: His works were perceived as flawed, uneven, and automatically associated to the coarseness of the literary tastes of the past.

His puns were deemed to be in bad taste. The funny episodes in sad plays and the sad bits in comic plays were erased. His characters were inconsistent. It was only from the second half of the eighteenth century that the concept of original text began truly to be taken into consideration, in parallel with the move to glorify Shakespeare as a semi-god.

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Rowe, Some accounts of the life etc. William Shakespeare, London: Innocenti, La scena trasformata: The Bard was presented paradoxically as both an omnipotent and an invisible entity, whose existence relied purely on an uncertain and shifting handwriting. On the one hand, it generated a frenetic search for papers, manuscripts or artefacts that could prove the existence of the poet; on the other hand, it spawned the proliferation of several biographical anecdotes that oscillated between truth and myth.

The forgeries were a sort of attempt to explain the genius of Shakespeare. Ireland fabricated a catalogue of the books Shakespeare possessed in his — presumed — library, which included more than volumes, some of them in Latin, Greek and French, in order to dispel the doubts that he was an uneducated man who, according to the testament found in , did not possess any books. He forged a Letter to Anne Hatherrewaye 88 which clarified the image of the poet as a faithful husband and a sentimental poet and dismissed any suspicions about his homosexuality.

Enclosed with the letter there was a lock of hair, which the actor had cut and offered to his bride as a token of devotion. The lock and the lyrical imagery in the letter completed the image of the poet as true man of feeling, which obviously matched the widespread sensibility trends of the latter part of the eighteenth century. He also forged a Letter to 84 Ibid.

Ascari, I linguaggi della tradizione: We might note, for example, that in each of six of his authenticated signatures he spells his surname differently. He abbreviates it, too, as if he were not happy with it. The brevity may, of course, equally be a sign of speed or impatience… The differences in the spelling of his surname can of course be ascribed to the loose and uncertain orthography of the period rather than to any perceived lack of identity, but it does at least suggest that his presence in the world was not fully determined. In a mortgage deed and a purchase deed, signed within hours or even minutes of each other, he signs his name in two completely different ways.

The author, as if by some act of magic, has disappeared! Pierce, The great Shakespeare fraud Gloucestershire: Moreover, a letter from Queen Elizabeth 91 appeared to prove that Shakespeare was loyal towards the monarch and not a conspirator with the Earl of Essex in the plot, as other anecdotes indicated.

The forgeries made the Bard a gentleman, or even a lord; they assuaged concerns over his personality, such as his unruliness he was purportedly accused of deer-poaching in the property of Sir Thomas Lucy in Charlecote, and subsequently fled to London in fear of persecution ; they glossed over his degrading jobs as a butcher or a horse-keeper. James Boaden, a firm believer in the forgeries, remarked that a man who was on such intimate terms with the aristocracy could neither be a deer-poacher nor a humble horse-keeper.

In order to reinforce this opinion, Ireland announced the discovery of the manuscript of King Lear, which the forger had rewritten and purged from vulgarity, as he declared in his Confessions: I determined on the expedient of rewriting, in the old hand, one of his most conspicuous plays, and making such alterations as I conceived appropriate.

Leave thy drinke and thy whore Ireland: Leave thy drinke and thye hope Sh: Two lines in Shakespeare become an alarming expansion: I have a journey, sir, shortly to go: My master calls, and I must say no Ir: Thanks, sir; but I goe toe thatte unknownne Land Thatte Chaynes each Pilgrim fast within its Soyle Bye livynge menne mouste shunnd mouste dreadedde Stille mye goode masterre thys same Journey tooke He calls mee I amme contente and straight obeye Thenne farewelle Worlde the busye Sceane is done Kente livd mouste true Kente dys mouste lyke a Manne Despite or perhaps because of these good intentions, the reactions that ensued the exposure of the forgeries were ferocious.

When Edmund Malone published his page Inquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments, the Ireland versions were called upstarts and cheats, lampooned in newspapers, accused of blasphemy: There were two central factors in this tragic outcome of the controversy: Literature in the eighteenth century was a commercial commodity and a costly one: The forgeries were dangerous because they proved that the boundaries between authentic and fake could easily be crossed.

Shakespeare was not only the national poet; he was a national emblem of power and stability in a troubled decade of national upheaval and chaos French Revolution, Industrial Revolution, American Revolution. Forging the image of Shakespeare was perceived to be alarmingly subversive, threatening the national identity and the main values of the English nation. In his Inquiry, Malone stood as both judge and guarantor of this republic, dedicating almost 90 pages to dismantling in detail each of the forged letters, and reinforcing his argument with a recurrent legalistic terminology.

We might even envisage the forgeries as elaborate pastiches that self-consciously imitate, deconstruct and re-fashion their source model. According to Genette, what distinguishes pastiche from forgery is that the latter are not identified as such by the reader: Briefly, forgeries cannot possess anything that might betray their fictional status; their style must be as close as possible to the original without repeating lines ad verbatim, and they must be totally devoid of anachronism. Above all, what was evidently anachronistic was orthography and spelling.

This is, according to Genette, exactly the opposite of forgery: Mary Redcliffe in Bristol. The Ireland forgeries have a distinctive and volatile metafictional quality. They mock the devices of representation of the real and the authentic even while they exploit these techniques to assert their own status. Perhaps William Henry was trying to get rid of a precocious anxiety of influence; this would explain why he felt the need to distance himself from the overpowering Shakespearian model and create his own line of continuity.

The deed was even matched by a lyric depicting the arms of Shakespeare and Ireland joined together. The rest of the treasure would go to G. So another problem was solved. Vortigern, a Historical Tragedy was performed at the Drury Lane in , after the forged letters had been exposed by Malone. Vortigern, a Saxon general, murders Constantius, king of Romanised Britain, in order to gain control of the crown and the kingdom. After the murder, he intends to use Flavia, his daughter, to strengthen his political connections by offering her hand to a Saxon Baron.

The allied troops of Romans and Scots attack the castle and Vortigern surrenders. The play presents a structure that adapts Shakespearian themes to the tastes of a genteel eighteenth- century audience. Hence Vortigern acquires significance precisely because it must be read as a forgery. The interpolation of elements which do not belong solely to one play but to the entire Shakespearian macrotext eludes the standardization and avoids the limitations of neoclassical standards. Adaptations in the eighteenth century tended to reduce or even eliminate the parts of the dramatic plot that did not give the entire structure a thematic coherence; the comic scenes were cut out from tragedies and many comedies were exaggerated, even farcically, to highlight regularity of mood and tone.

Vortigern is a rather more ambiguous adaptation. It is rhapsodic and even carnivalesque, mixing fools and kings, grotesquerie and farcical elements, embodying everything that eighteenth century adaptations of Shakespeare tried to rule out or avoid.

Therefore, the play acquires a special literary value only if we read it as pastiche. Instead of choosing one form or another, rationalizing the plot, Ireland mixes everything in a whimsical melting-pot with no concern of time, place or action — much like Shakespeare himself might have done. He liberates the play from the restricting neoclassical unities, piecing together a variety of codes and forms from the Shakespearian imagery and inserting them in a structure which was recognizable to an eighteenth-century audience. Ireland was so severely and possibly disproportionately punished for his liberties because he was ahead of his time.

Ironically, he died on April, 23, just like Shakespeare, and he was buried in W. Ireland, Vortigern, A historical tragedy London: Adaptations of Shakespeare in the eighteenth century usually explained the cruelty of the villains, see Innocenti, p. But unlike the poet he died penniless and unknown. They showed that tradition is not untouchable or static and that, like any cultural artefact, it needs constant reworking to survive and proliferate. And perhaps Ireland anticipated this argument, substantially proving that the legacy of Shakespeare might reside in the very process of appropriation and forging of his image and his language.

His work shows a sort of affectionate companionship between what he presented as his ancestor and himself; it suggests that the creation of a literary identity relies on the questioning of the very notion of authenticity and originality. Waldron wrote some days before the performance of Vortigern: Bibliography Primary Texts S.

Greenblatt, Will in the world London: Waldron, Free reflection on miscellaneous papers and legal instruments under the hand and seal of William Shakspeare in the possession of Samuel Ireland of Norfolk-Street , p. Longmans, , pp. Seuil, Greenblatt, Stephen, Will in the world London: Jonathan Cape, Innocenti, Loretta, La scena trasformata: Sansoni, Kahan, Jeffrey, Reforging Shakespeare: Pierce, Patricia, The great Shakespeare fraud Gloucestershire: Sutton, Rowe, Nicholas, Some accounts of the life etc. Faber, Taylor, Gary, Reinventing Shakespeare: Morfologicamente, Romeo e Giulietta si pone come una tragedia anomala in quanto costruita secondo gli schemi e le forme tipiche della convenzione poetica cortese.

The complete works of William Shakespeare, Oxford, , pp. Genesi e struttura delle opere Milano: Giova, a questo proposito, ricordare come le fonti principali a partire dalle quali Shakespeare riscrive genialmente la storia degli amanti nati sotto contraria stella siano costituite dalle versioni in lingua inglese tratte delle Histoires Tragiques di Boaistuau, a sua volta traduttore e reinventore della IX novella di Bandello nella quale si narra la storia di Romeo e Giulietta riprendendo una antica tradizione italica che va da Masuccio Salernitano a Luigi da Porto.

Le versioni inglesi della Histoire tragique riproposta da Boiastuau sono quella di Arthur Brooke, con il suo poema in versi The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet , e quella in prosa di William Painter, raccolta in The Palace of Pleasure Questa anomalia avrebbe dunque una giustificazione interna e profonda, e non solo esterna e contingente. Risulta anzitutto indicativo che, come prologo al II Atto, Shakespeare ponga un ulteriore sonetto oltre a quello iniziale: O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. Ci troviamo nel fulcro di Romeo and Juliet, la cui morfologia retorica viene dunque caratterizzata in modo decisivo da tale utilizzo di un registro neoplatonico. Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Giulietta fa cenno a una trascendenza non materica. Risulta interessante comparare il sonetto di Romeo con un sonetto tratto dal canzoniere shakespeariano e con un testo delle Rime michelangiolesche, al fine di comprenderne meglio la funzione drammaturgica e il retroterra neoplatonico: When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheered and check'd even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory; Then the conceit of this inconstant stay Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay, To change your day of youth to sullied night; And all in war with Time for love of you, As he takes from you, I engraft you new..

Naturalmente, si tratta di una tematica dominante nei Sonetti di Shakespeare, e i cui legami con la tradizione cortese sono stati adeguatamente messi in luce dalla critica. If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray — grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake. Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Then have my lips the sin that they have took. Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. You kiss by th' book. Platonicamente, la Bellezza di Giulietta risveglia, giungendo attraverso gli occhi di Romeo, la nostalgia di Dio nella sua anima.

Tuttavia, nella prima parte oltre un terzo dei versi pronunciati sono in rima; nella seconda, la rima interessa meno del sette per cento della versificazione. A livello ermeneutico, questo cambio di registri linguistici dopo la morte di Mercuzio significa qualcosa di ben preciso: La morte di Mercuzio segna dunque la vera cesura tragica del dramma: Egli guarda Giulietta non diversamente da come il poeta del Canzoniere guarda Laura: Si noti come Romeo si ponga, in questo senso, tra i personaggi di Otello e Amleto: Il Luteranesimo teoretico di Amleto che ha studiato a Wittemberg diviene in Romeo la base per il compimento del proprio martirio.

Olschki Editore, , pp. Scribner, Bloom, Harold, Shakespeare: Riverhead, Campell, Lily Bess, Shakespeare's tragic heroes: Harvester Press, Hawkes, Terence, Shakespeare and the reason: Routledge, Kott, Jan, Shakespeare, our contemporary London: Methuen, , pp. Ashgate, McGinn, Colin, Shakespeare's philosophy: Methuen, Levith, Murray J. Palgrave Macmillan, Olivier, T. Perini, Giovanna, Dialogo didattico e dialogo drammatico: John Florio e William Shakespeare Firenze: Olschki, Pettet, E. I, , pp. Nevertheless, the drama… is capable of greater variation and of expressing more varied types of society, than any other.

Faber and Faber, edn. His plays have been translated into many different languages over the centuries, bearing witness to their huge appeal to a variety of audiences while they address universal themes overriding space and time barriers. As this staging is mainly carried out through translation, the international performance of Shakespeare and Shakespeare in translation has become an area of academic study and research. Each literary translation involves a passage from one language — and therefore from one culture — to another.

What happens when this translation involves two languages as different as English a natural language and American Sign Language?

Theatre, being based on spatiality, expressivity and gestuality, is a genre naturally suited to sign language. This paper will be therefore structured into three main parts, respectively focusing on: Now, theatricality does not imply orality alone. By means of precise indications of gesture and movement, or through implicit suggestions of physical bearing, they have the capacity to set the body in motion. For a language has a body, and not only in the metaphorical sense. That it should be uttered is not enough; the entire body must participate in the act of speaking.

As the translation process could not be documented on paper, it was videotaped thanks to a grant from Yale Digital Media Center. This project, called ASL Shakespeare, provided the newly founded Amaryllis Theatre - dedicated to employing actors with disabilities - with the script for its debut performance, staged at Philadelphia in In their introduction to Remaking Shakespeare: He also points to the fact that there is no great distance between Shakespeare and sign language.

This point is reinforced by the example of John Bulwer, physician, author of the seventeenth century Chirologia: Bulwer asserts that the hands and their gestures were better suited to communicate universally than spoken languages. However, he also acknowledges the limits of these representations: Interpreting allows the intersection of two spoken languages, whereas translation introduces various permutations of the two interacting elements: Moreover, in the case of interpreting sign language, one may be written and the other a sign language.

Interpreting skills inevitably require the necessary knowledge of both the source language and the target language. This occurs, for instance, when interpreting information based on sound for deaf audiences. Moreover, meter, rhyme and rhythm play a crucial role in his plays as in drama at large. An obvious question arises here: Before trying to answer this, it is worth considering the basic linguistic features of ASL as compared to English.

The latter involves four distinctive parameters: Facial expression can also contribute to the linguistic functions expressed by the sign, helping to express a certain syntactical feature such as relative or interrogative clauses or taking the function of a quantifier or an adverb. In addition, the tone of sentences and expressions, made possible by the vocal inflection in spoken languages, is already included in the formation of the word in signed languages and is conveyed through the energy and emphasis movement of the sign.

According to deaf linguist and poet Valli, while in English there are two fundamental types of rhyme — assonance and alliteration — ASL offers the possibility for four types of rhyme: Although deaf studies, performance studies and Shakespeare studies have been treated and studied so far as distinct and separate disciplines, they actually share some common ground. This is something to bear in mind when tackling the issue of translating Shakespeare in sign language. What is the point of displaying such intersections?

What contribution could they give to each area? The goal of this paper is to show how the overlapping of these fields can help to illuminate the extant key features of each, while also bringing forth new views on performance, language and culture. Indeed, interdisciplinary and intercultural discourses have the potential to fuel serious reconsideration of assumed and widely accepted notions, thus offering new constructive perspectives.

This is how Novak envisaged the whole process: Actor and translator Robert DeMayo also explains the difficulty of the translation process. The latter involved three steps: According to Novak, in addition to what has been said so far in relation to the act of translating, it is important to consider one more point when facing the issue of translating English into ASL. While the deaf actors on stage signed the lines, hearing performers recited them.

Very early in the play [Act I, Scene I, ll. So I conveyed the double meaning through the verb. In Act I, Scene V, Malvolio describes to the curious Olivia the young girl disguised as the boy Cesario who wishes to speak to her and waits at the gate to be let in. Of what personage and years is he? Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling, when 'tis almost an apple: He is very well-favoured, and he speaks very shrewishly; one would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him.

The signs used by Malvolio to describe Cesario have a double meaning: In English, as in other spoken languages, metre is what gives rhythm to a verse or a line through a recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. However, movement, location and handshape contribute to establishing verse-form in ASL as in all sign languages.

Classifiers are one way of doing this. Some examples of classifiers include the 1 classifier that can be used to represent, among other things, a person standing, or, if placed horizontally, a pair of scissors, etc. Even if it is possible to recount a story exclusively using one classifier handshape, most stories make use of several classifiers.

• Shakespeare, 20 domande per conoscere il Bardo morto 400 anni fa;
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The first images show the use of the 1 classifier to represent a person, respectively Olivia and her handmaid. When Feste refers to visiting both households where he entertains for money regularly, he shows this visually by moving himself between the two classifiers which represent Olivia and Orsino. The motion of cutting the suspenders is made by using a 2 classifier iconically reproducing the image of scissors cutting the suspenders off. Finally, after the gaskins fall, they reveal his bare legs, represented by a 2 classifier.

This is made clear by the images below, which show the predominance of similar handshapes and of recurrent movement paths used for the sign translation of the first lines from Twelfth Night. Arguably, such an advantage consists for the former demographic in the possibility of accessing a literary icon, thus partaking in his linguistic mastery and creative genius; moreover, it is a way to give academic relevance to ASL itself, showing its manifold possibilities. Peter Novak Washington, D. Lennard Davis New York: Carocci, Sacks, Oliver, Vedere voci: Adelphi, Snyder, Lindsey Diane, Sawing the air thus: American Sign Language translations of Shakespeare and the echoes of rhetorical gesture, Ph.

This transfer is not accidental but, on the contrary, sets up a meaningful contrast between opposed perspectives on politics and action. Lucan depicts the Roman general at one of the most important and controversial moments of his career: Most critics, however, agree that something is hidden beneath this negative representation: Gundolf, The mantle of Caesar, trans. He would rather smash the city-gates than enter them wide open, with sword and fire devastate the fields than tread them with the farmer unresisting. He is ashamed to go by paths permitted, like a citizen.

At the peak of his delusion, he urges his soldiers with the following words: Here Caesar, maddening the people and goading them to frenzy, goes ranging round the troops, adding fires to spirits already blazing: Wherever he goes round. And yet, at the end of this bloody and fratricidal struggle, the reader is presented with an even more chilling scene: Lucan and his heroes Ithaca: He is delighted that he cannot see the Emathian land and that his eyes scan fields hidden underneath the carnage.

The Roman general revels in the visceral reality of blood: No wonder, then, that such a literary creation has been one of the most influential characters in Western literature, never ceasing to fascinate or disgust writers, critics and readers in every age. All references to the play are to this edition. Right after Anthony, Dolobella and an unnamed lord of the Roman army have expressed their desire to crown him king, Caesar starts pouring out his sorrow for the devastation he has left behind himself in the last internecine battle 1.

Why Caesar oft hath sacrificed in France, Millions of Soules, to Plutoes grisly dames And made the changed coloured Rhene to blush, To beare his bloody burthen to the sea. This is enough to make Caesar instantly forget his previous cares and feel ready for a new fratricidal battle: In light of these considerations, it is easy to understand how the images of destruction are employed as a means to foreground the horrors of civil war, and so to render the censure of ambition and revenge more explicit.

Anthony proclaims Aemathian fieldes shall change her flowry greene, And die proud Flora in a sadder hew;. Hemus shall fat his barren fieldes with bloud, And yellow Ceres spring from wounds of men. In her penultimate speech, her palpable gloating and satisfaction indicate that she has fully attained her ends: I, now my longing hopes haue their desire, The world is nothing but a massie heape Of bodys slayne, the Sea a lake of blood, The Furies that for slaughter only thirst, Are with these Massakers and slaughters cloyed.

Hell and Elysium must be digd in one, And both will be to litle to contayne, Numberles numbers of afflicted ghostes, That I my selfe haue tumbling thither sent. In Cornelia Caesar, who does not appear until 4. It is Cassius, in a dialogue with Brutus at the beginning of 4. Some should you see that had theyr heads halfe clouen, And on the earth theyr braines lye trembling: Here one new wounded helps another dying: Petreius and Affranius I defeated. Pompey I over threw; what did that get me? Kyd, Cornelia, in The works of Thomas Kyd, ed. Massinger, The false one, ed. Turner, in The dramatic works in the Beaumont and Fletcher canon, gen.

They are perhaps best understood, as Clifford J. Here the images of devastation—many directly taken from Lucan—are more widespread and have wider implications. Their speeches abound with Lucanic echoes and would seem to presage a chilling enterprise of unheard-of impiety; in fact, the language stands in sharp contrast to the chronic inaction to which the plotters doom themselves.

This happens, for example, in the raving exchange taken almost verbatim from Bellum Civile between Catiline and his henchman Cethegus in Act 1. The most vivid and striking images of destruction are deployed by Cethegus, undoubtedly the most enthusiastic, the most eager, the most thirsty for revenge, slaughters and carnage among the conspirators. In fact, he proclaims himself happy to reach his objectives by a dangerous and rough road in a speech which combines two passages from Lucan [Civil War, 2. When the consul asks him how he would have used the weapons found in his house he can only answer as follows: Jonson, La congiura di Catilina: Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great: Though he never loses his coherence and dignity, after the electoral defeat his attitude seems marked by a desire to inflict destruction on himself rather than on others.

Even more telling in this respect is the use Jonson makes of an image taken directly from Bellum Civile in the final description of the fight between the Catilinarians and the consular troops: The way Jonson exploits and combines the images of destruction drawn from Lucan acquires a specific meaning in the light of his portrayal of Caesar. On the contrary, he is portrayed as the perfect representative of political Machiavellianism: They had condemned his ambition, which had led him to become the destroyer of the republic. Bruni, History of the Florentine people, ed.

Elyot, The book named the governor, ed. Gentili, La Roma antica degli elisabettiani Bologna: If, however, anyone desires to know what writers would have said, had they been free, he has but to look at what they say of Catiline. For Caesar is the more blameworthy of the two in that he who has done wrong is more blameworthy than he who has but desired to do wrong. Come, there was never any great thing yet Aspired, but by violence or fraud. His conduct from this point on will be marked by the utmost prudence and characterized by the most devious duplicity, finally providing him with impunity.

Caesar always remains cold and detached, never abandoning his pragmatism to indulge in delusions of destructive omnipotence. Thus, Jonson sets up an opposition between Lucan and Machiavelli in order to illustrate a universal lesson in politics: Machiavelli, The discourses, ed. McLaughlin suggests that perhaps Machiavelli has in mind a similar interpretation proposed by Poggio Bracciolini about a century earlier M. Machiavelli, Istorie Fiorentine e altre opere storiche e politiche, ed. On the contrary, it gives life to a personal and original reworking through which the playwright can express his conception of life, art and, in this particular case, history and politics.

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James Hankins Cambridge, MA: Jonson, Ben, La congiura di Catilina: Lucanus, Marcus Annaeus, Civil war, ed. Penguin, Marlowe, Christopher, Tamburlaine the Great: Michael Andrew Screech Harmondsworth: Penguin, Boas, Frederick S. Gentili, Vanna, La Roma antica degli elisabettiani Bologna: Miriam Tamara Griffin Hoboken: Wiley, , pp. Gundolf, Friedrich, The mantle of Caesar, trans.

Jacob Wittmer Hartmann London: ECIG, , pp. Blackwell, , pp. According to reception theory, the same thing happens with literature.