To download the article in PDF click on the icon

For the photolog click here.

For further information about Shakespeare:
www.william-shakespeare.info

For further information about the Rainbow Theatre:
www.rainbow-theatre.co.uk

To watch plays by Shakespeare as it was used at his times, I suggest the Globe Theatre:
www.shakespeares-globe.org

By Walter Ego

In August we watched the Shakespeare tragedy Antony and Cleopatra at the Rainbow Theatre, in the marvellous setting represented by the garden of the Greenwich Astronomic Observatory. It is really interesting thinking of how Shakespeare, the great Bard, the greatest and most read English writer of all time, received such a wide inspiration from Italy. Here is a list, which I must admit surprised me much, of all the works that are at least partially set in Italy or whose characters are Italians:

Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Julius Caesar
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Titus Andronicus
All’s Well that Ends Well
Cymbeline
The Merchant of Venice
Much Ado About Nothing
Pericles Prince of Tyre
The Tempest
Twelve Nights
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter’s Tale

There are 15! Perhaps Shakespeare was the first English to buy a farmhouse in Tuscany?
Joking apart, if we want to understand why the great bard loved Italy, we should start from this: in his life there are two blackouts. The first one from 1578 to 1582; in 1582 married Anne Hathaway and soon afterwards the second blackout started: from 1582 to 1592.
There is no proof that Shakespeare worked on anything during those years and some scholars, amongst the other hypothesis, hold that he could have been to Italy. It is however known for sure that the Italian literature was at that time renowned and diffused in England, henceforth it would not be surprising if Shakespeare knew Italian. It is furthermore very probable that he met John Florio, apostle of Italian culture in England, tutor of Henry Wriothesley, Count of Southampton and patron of Shakespeare himself.

Whether he went to Italy or not, it seems that also the very-English Shakespeare was a promoter of Italian culture in England through his works, and this no doubt makes him closer to us, and maybe next time we will watch Romeo and Juliet we can imagine that William had really been to Verona and was fascinated by its mews, perhaps helped by a beautiful Italian girl…

Copyright 2006 GIORGIOSTUDIO – All rights reserved