Richard Paul Roe spent more than twenty years traveling the length and breadth of Italy on a literary quest of unparalleled significance. Using the text from Shakespeare’s ten “Italian Plays” as his only compass, Roe determined the exact locations of nearly every scene in Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, The Tempest, and the remaining dramas set in Italy. His chronicle of travel, analysis, and discovery paints with unprecedented clarity a picture of what the Bard must have experienced before penning his plays. Equal parts literary detective story and vivid travelogue—containing copious annotations and more than 150 maps, photographs, and paintings—The Shakespeare Guide to Italy is a unique, compelling, and deeply provocative journey that will forever change our understanding of how to read the Bard . . . and irrevocably alter our vision of who William Shakespeare really was.

Shakespeare and the Italian Renaissance investigates the works of Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists from within the context of the European Renaissance and, more specifically, from within the context of Italian cultural, dramatic, and literary traditions, with reference to the impact and influence of classical, coeval, and contemporary culture. In contrast to previous studies, the critical perspectives pursued in this volume’s tripartite organization take into account a wider European intertextual dimension and, above all, an ideological interpretation of the 'aesthetics' or 'politics' of intertextuality. Contributors perceive the presence of the Italian world in early modern England not as a traditional treasure trove of influence and imitation, but as a potential cultural force, consonant with complex processes of appropriation, transformation, and ideological opposition through a continuous dialectical interchange of compliance and subversion.

The startling central idea behind this study is that the rediscovery of Aristotle's Poetics in the sixteenth century ultimately had a profound impact on almost every aspect of Shakespeare's late plays”their sources, subject matter and thematic concerns. Shakespeare's Poetics reveals the generic complexity of Shakespeare's late plays to be informed by contemporary debates about the tonal and structural composition of tragicomedy. Author Sarah Dewar-Watson re-examines such plays as The Winter's Tale, Pericles and The Tempest in light of the important work of reception which was undertaken in Italy by pioneering theorists such as Giambattista Giraldi Cinthio (1504-73) and Giambattista Guarini (1538-1612). The author demonstrates ways in which these theoretical developments filtered from their intellectual base in Italy to the playhouses of early modern England via the work of dramatists such as Jonson and Fletcher. Dewar-Watson argues that the effect of this widespread revaluation of genre not only extends as far as Shakespeare, but that he takes a leading role in developing its possibilities on the English stage. In the course of pursuing this topic, Dewar-Watson also engages with several areas of current scholarly debate: the nature of Shakespeare's authorship; recent interest in and work on Shakespeare's later plays; and new critical work on Italian language-learning in Renaissance England. Finally, Shakespeare's Poetics develops current critical thinking about the place of Greek literature in Renaissance England, particularly in relation to Shakespeare.

The use of Italian culture in the Jacobean theatre was never an isolated gesture. In considering the ideological repercussions of references to Italy in prominent works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Michael J. Redmond argues that early modern intertextuality was a dynamic process of allusion, quotation, and revision. Beyond any individual narrative source, Redmond foregrounds the fundamental role of Italian textual precedents in the staging of domestic anxieties about state crisis, nationalism, and court intrigue. By focusing on the self-conscious, overt rehearsal of existing texts and genres, the book offers a new approach to the intertextual strategies of early modern English political drama. The pervasive circulation of Cinquecento political theorists like Machiavelli, Castiglione, and Guicciardini combined with recurrent English representations of Italy to ensure that the negotiation with previous writing formed an integral part of the dramatic agendas of period plays.

Despite the growing critical relevance of Shakespeare's two Venetian plays and a burgeoning bibliography on both The Merchant of Venice and Othello, few books have dealt extensively with the relationship between Shakespeare and Venice. This timely collection fills a gap in the literature, addressing the new historical, political and economic questions that have been raised in the last few years about early modern globalization, multiculturalism, and multiple social and ethnic identities.

"The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare is a gripping and intense drama that explores themes of revenge, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of violence. Set in ancient Rome, the play follows the tragic downfall of the noble general Titus Andronicus and his family as they become embroiled in a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. At the heart of the story is the brutal conflict between Titus Andronicus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose sons are executed by Titus as retribution for their crimes. In retaliation, Tamora and her lover, Aaron the Moor, orchestrate a series of heinous acts of revenge against Titus and his family, plunging them into a spiral of madness and despair. As the body count rises and the atrocities escalate, Titus is consumed by grief and rage, leading to a climactic showdown that culminates in a shocking and tragic conclusion. Along the way, Shakespeare explores themes of honor, justice, and the nature of humanity, offering a searing indictment of the cycle of violence and the capacity for cruelty that lies within us all.