“I have decreed not to sing in my cage”. Melancholy at Court from Castiglione to Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6093/sigma.v0i5.8770Keywords:
Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Castiglione, uncourtliness, melancholyAbstract
In light of the well-established presence of Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, I will focus on the villain of the play, Don John, and emphasise the hitherto unacknowledged similarities between his character and the melancholic courtiers against whom Castiglione had warned in his work. In so doing, I will underscore how Shakespeare did not limit to a simplistic construct of imitation and adaptation of his Italian model, but proved to be well aware of the contemporary debates surrounding the spreading and the dangerous effects of melancholy.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
SigMa Journal is an open access, online publication, with licence:
|
|
CCPL Creative Commons Attribution |
The author retains the copyright of his work whilst granting anyone the possibility “to reproduce, distribute, publicly communicate, publicly exhibit, display, perform and recite the work”, provided that the author and the title of the journal are cited correctly. When submitting the text for publication the author is furthermore required to declare that the contents and the structure of the work are original and that it does not by any means compromise the rights of third parties nor the obligations connected to the safeguard of the moral and economic rights of other authors or other right holders, both for texts, images, photographs, tables, as well as for other parts which compose the contribution. The author furthermore declares that he/she is conscious of the sanctions prescribed by the penal code and by the Italian Criminal and Special Laws for false documents and the use false documents, and that therefore Reti Medievali is not liable to responsibilities of any nature, civil, administrative or penal, and that the author agrees to indemnify and hold Reti Medievali harmless from all requests and claims by third parties.
