A History of British Attitudes to Italy

1
A History of British Attitudes to Italy

• Unit I
• Humanistic Italy and its representations in
  England

2
The Middle Ages

• In the Middle Ages travellers came to Italy
• to study in its great universities (Bologna,
  Padua)
• On pilgrimage
• For diplomatic and commercial reasons

3
Italy in the collective consciousness of England

• Entered English consciousness rather early.
• Much before Italy became an autonomous nation, it
  was perceived as a homogeneous entity that lived
  in a specific territory and shared common
  cultural roots and characteristics.
• The Italian world remained a constant component
  of the English background even during the
  centuries of Italys political eclipse.

4
Chaucer

• direct knowledge of Italy,
• participation in Italian life
• admiration and imitation of its masterpieces
• Many of the characters that populate his works,
  if not Italian are fashioned after Italian
  models.

5
Early Modern Literature

• A trip to Italy was considered indispensable for
  rounding out a gentlemans education and make him
• a humanist
• A poet (sonnetteer)
• a perfect courtier
• A subtle politician

6
Cultural and Intellectual Relations between Italy
and England

• Many educated Italians in England (e.g. Florio
  who translated Montaigne)
• Italian language, history and literature were
  taught, studied and translated intensively
• Wyatt and Surrey started the Renaissance in
  England by translating and imitating Petrarch and
  disseminating the notion of idealized love.
• Baldassar Castigliones Il libro del Cortegiano
  (1528, translated into English by Sir Thomas Hoby
  in 1561) taught English people refined manners
  and the art of brilliant conversation and witty
  repartee.

7
Italy compared to a Paradise on Earth (Reading N.
3)

• Italy was thought
• the most advanced civilization of the time,
• the most progressive society.
• In politics and warfare, science and technology,
  finance, banking and commerce, art, music, and
  literature, Italy was the leader
• A place of different surprising customs (such as
  the use of forks, fans, umbrellas, women
  actresses on stage etc.)
• The cradle of a classical past

8
The Perception of Italy after the Reformation
(Reading N. 4)

• An Epicurean heaven a hell associated with
  gross voluptuousness, false religion and
  villainy
• Humanists accused of being indifferent to
  religion
• A land of sexual transgression
• A decadent, corrupt place, where revenge,
  political intrigue, rapacity, and horrible crimes
  are a common practice
• A bad example for English people Inglese
  italianato è un diavolo incarnato

9
Explanation of negative views

• In light of the Reformation and of the wars with
  Spain it was convenient to represent Catholic
  countries, and especially Italy, the home of the
  Pope, as the source of all evils.
• Italy was divided into many competing courts and
  warring states and therefore was more unruly and
  violent than England.
• Machiavellis Prince was misunderstood as an
  encouragement to political crime and a black
  legend grew around him.

10
Texts that helped disseminate negative views of
Italy

• Semi-fictionalized travel narratives such as
  Coryats Crudities or Nashes The Unfortunate
  Traveller,
• translations of many shocking Italian novellas,
• romances such as Lylys Euphues
• drama (Elizabethan and, even more so, Jacobean)

11
Italy in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama

• An exotic setting
• Imitation of Italian commedia erudita
• Imitation classical models.

12
Popularity of Senecan model of tragedy

• In search for tragical models from the classical
  past, choice falls on Senecas tragedies,
• Senecas tragedies are the least classical and
  closest to popular medieval tradition
• Bloody themes
• Supernatural elements
• Cruel tyrants
• Senecas tragedies reached England through
  Giraldi Cinthios Italian adaptations
• Transformed tyrants into shrewd Machiavellian
  politicians
• The Elizabethan stage tyrant is a combination of
  Senecan tyrant, Machiavellian intriguer and local
  intriguing politicians (e.g. Thomas Cromwell)

13
Popularity of the black legend of Italy on stage

• Interest in the figure of the tyrant
• Machiavellian myth
• Hatred for Counter-Reformation, Inquisition, the
  Jesuitsall enemies of Protestant England and
  associated with arch-enemy Spain
• Torture, Imprisonment, Trials
• Success of revenge tragedy staging the most
  intricate and cruel forms of destroying the enemy
  
• Impossible in Protestant ethos
• Had to take place in Spain or Italy

14
Italy as the land of transgressive sexuality

• Italy is the land of disinhibition, free and easy
  love.
• Italy is the land of strong passions.
• Italy is the land of illicit love
• Adultery,
• incest,
• attempted rape

15
Contradictory views of Italy

• Italy is a poets paradise
• Love poetry, sonnet sequences
• Sentimental comedies
• Romances
• Pastoral poetry
• Italy is a revengers inferno
• Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedies

16
Some of the many Italian sources used by Early
Modern Dramatists

• Ariosto, Aretino, commedia erudita
• Commedia dellarte
• Giraldi Cinthios Hecatommiti
• Matteo Bandellos Novelle,
• Ser Giovanni Fiorentinos Il Pecorone,
• Boccaccios Decameron
• Italian theoretical writings abut the theatre

17
A List of the most famous Early Modern tragedies
set in Italy

• Thomas Dekker, The Honest Whore
• Ben Jonson, Volpone
• John Marston, The Malcontent Antonio and
  Mellida Antonios Revenge.
• George Chapman, All Fools
• Cyril Tourneur, The Revengers Tragedy
• John Ford, Tis Pity Shes a Whore
• Richard Webster, The Duchess of Malfi The White
  Devil
• Thomas Middleton The Revengers Tragedy Women
  Beware Women

18
About ten plays of Shakespeares are set entirely
or partially in Italy

• no proof that he travelled to Italy
• Often factually incorrect
• Had many sources to draw on
• Sets his plays in the major Renaissance Italian
  power centres (Venice, Tuscany and the Spanish
  protectorates)
• Leaves out Rome (except in the classical plays
  also called Roman plays)

19
Differences from contemporary representations of
Italy in Shakespeares theatre

• Shakespeare avoids all the excesses and horrors
  his contemporaries attributed to Italians
• Othello and Shylock, the chief violent characters
  of the Italian plays are not thoroughly Italian,
  Othello being a Moor, Shylock a Jew and Jago, as
  his name suggests, Spanish or Portuguese.
• Many of his most Machiavellian characters and
  events are to be found outside his Italian plays.
  

20
Affirmative view of Italy

• Closer to the spirit of comic romance literature
• Closer to Ariosto and Castiglione
• Idealized love
• Witty and polite conversational exchanges
• Many plays end in reconciliation or find a modus
  vivendi

21
Plays located in Italy

• The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1580s )
• Romeo and Juliet (1594-95)
• The Taming of the Shrew (1594)
• The Merchant of Venice (1596-97)
• Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99)
• Alls Well That Ends Well (1604)
• Othello (1604)
• The Winters Tale(1611)
• The Tempest (1611)
• Other plays such Twelfth Night or Measure for
  Measure although set elsewhere present Italian
  characteristics. Cymbelines Rome is more
  Renaissance than ancient