Stefano Jossa - Böcker

Marking the fifth centenary of the publication of the first edition of the Italian masterpiece, Ariosto, the Orlando Furioso and English Culture brings together an international team of Renaissance scholars from a wide variety of disciplines to analyse in detail the diffuse impact which the epic poem had upon English culture from the Tudor century to the present day. Translated into English in the 1590s by Sir John Harington, godson of Elizabeth I, the influence of Ariosto's poem can be traced in literature, music and the visual arts, from Spenser and Milton to modern media adaptations. In addition, the collection reflects upon the ways in which successive editions and translations, examples of critical reception, rewritings and adaptations in different media (in particular opera) all shaped the rich and evolving understanding of the adventures of Orlando, Angelica, Medoro, Olympia, and Sacripante in the cultural and artistic production of England across the centuries.

Italian literature is among the most ancient and influential Western literatures. With its classics spanning from the Middle Ages to our contemporaneity, the impact of Italian literature worldwide has been and still is enormous - think of the influence of Dante in shaping Holocaust narratives and that of Italo Calvino on postmodern fiction. Italian literature remains a subject of enduring interest for academics, students, and general audiences. After the long and still resisting season of nationalisms, the time is ripe to rethink Italian literature against the background of a more and more globalized world.The Oxford Handbook of Italian Literature considers the development, status, and significance of Italian Literature in this globalized context. Organized into four parts (Institutions; Production; Controversies; and Icons), this Handbook approaches Italian literature across its historical span through a variety of perspectives and methodologies, including nationalism, internationalism, and transnationalism, culture, gender and ethnic studies, and ecocriticism, with constant and careful attention to the forms and contents of literary practices and discourses. This Handbook offers the most comprehensive survey of Italian literature to date, ranging broadly from Dante's times to the contemporary world bestselling phenomenon of Elena Ferrante. Italian literature emerges as a case in point for reorientating literary studies towards the experimentation of difference, permeability, and integration.Bringing together distinguished scholars of Italian literature from major world universities, including the US, UK, Italy, France, Ireland, Canada, and Germany, these 54 chapters unsettle and reshape the field of Italian literature. This Handbook aims to inspire scholars and writers in Italian Studies to explore innovative conceptual frameworks and facilitate a comparative dialogue with scholars of other literary traditions around the world: an especially vital goal in our increasingly interconnected world.

From the Middle Ages onwards, writers, artists and composers became self-consciously aware of the vast potential for external references to enrich their works. By evoking canonical texts and their producers from the distant or more recent past, authors demonstrated their respect for tradition while showcasing their own merits. In so doing they also manipulated the memory of their readers. This volume represents a multidisciplinary approach to the themes of citation and intertextual play. It is also an exploration of the role of memory in the cultural production of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The essays investigate work by renowned authors, composers and artists, as well as less familiar sources, from France, England and Italy.

This collection of essays by outstanding scholars from across the world, led by two major experts in the field, offers a wide-ranging investigation into Ludovico Ariosto’s multifarious presence in early modern English culture.The volume reassesses the diverse forms of influence and intertextuality that have wrought on the period’s literature through direct and indirect reading, refashioning, rewriting, and adaptation of Ariosto’s works in Elizabethan England and beyond. The novelty of the volume lies in its careful attention to the impact, reception, adaptation, and appropriation of one of the landmarks of Western literature, Ludovico Ariosto and his works, on and in English literature at the time of Shakespeare.The wide range of specialism, spanning from Shakespeare studies to Italian studies, from theatre to chivalric literature, from issues of race and gender to reception theory and cultural studies, will guarantee a high level of interdisciplinarity and make the book appealing to scholars and students alike of different fields.