Elisabetta Tarantino – författare

The Agonist, the Lover and the Poet: An Intertextual Study across Virgil, Ovid and Shakespeare introduces the idea of an eros/agon complex originating ultimately from the third book of Virgil’s Georgics, where the icon of either part of the complex, the myth of Hero and Leander and fulva harena as agonistic ground par excellence, made their first appearance. This complex and its thematic importance are then traced across the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, the Heroides and Ovid’s exile poetry, while the last three chapters show how the complex informs Venus and Adonis, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest, in ways that open new vistas and at the same time account for a variety of at times puzzling aspects of these three Shakespearean works. While this study is mainly directed at academics and researchers, the author hopes that, with its pragmatic approach, it will be of interest to undergraduates and practising poets as well. Thanks to the extensive sign-posting and cross-referencing, this volume, as well as read sequentially, could be approached in the first instance through specific entry points selected by the reader. Alternatively, the Introduction highlights some, though by no means all, of the places where the intriguing literary strategies applied by our three authors are particularly in evidence.

This volume shows the pervasiveness over a millennium and a half of the little-studied phenomenon of multi-tier intertextuality, whether as ‘linear’ window reference – where author C simultaneously imitates or alludes to a text by author A and its imitation by author B – or as multi-directional imitative clusters. It begins with essays on classical literature from Homer to the high Roman empire, where the feature first becomes prominent; then comes late antiquity, a lively area of research at present; and, after a series of essays on European neo-Latin literature from Petrarch to 1600, another area where developments are moving rapidly, the volume concludes with early modern vernacular literatures (Italian, French, Portuguese and English). Most papers concern verse, but prose is not ignored. The introduction to the volume discusses the relevant methodological issues. An Afterword outlines the critical history of ‘window reference’ and includes a short essay by Professor Richard Thomas, of Harvard University, who coined the term in the 1980s.

This volume shows the pervasiveness over a millennium and a half of the little-studied phenomenon of multi-tier intertextuality, whether as ‘linear’ window reference – where author C simultaneously imitates or alludes to a text by author A and its imitation by author B – or as multi-directional imitative clusters.

It begins with essays on classical literature from Homer to the high Roman empire, where the feature first becomes prominent; then comes late antiquity, a lively area of research at present; and, after a series of essays on European neo-Latin literature from Petrarch to 1600, another area where developments are moving rapidly, the volume concludes with early modern vernacular literatures (Italian, French, Portuguese and English). Most papers concern verse, but prose is not ignored. The introduction to the volume discusses the relevant methodological issues. An Afterword outlines the critical history of ‘window reference’ and includes a short essay by Professor Richard Thomas, of Harvard University, who coined the term in the 1980s.