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Comedy and the Counter-Reformation https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] COMEDY AND THE COUNTER-REFORMATION: AN EXAMINATION OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE ITALIAN NON- TRAGIC DRAMA AND ITS SUBSEQUENT EFFECT ON THE ENGLISH THEATRE FROM SHAKESPEARE TO SHIRLEY WITH PARTICULAR EMPHASIS ON THE ROLE OF THE GO-BETWEEN BY ROBERT WILLIAM CHARLES LESLIE A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RESEARCH FOR THIS THESIS WAS CARRIED OUT UNDER THE JOINT SUPERVISION OF THE ENGLISH LITERATURE AND ITALIAN DEPARTMENTS SUBMITTED IN OCTOBER 1994 I should like to express my thanks to Alec Yearling for his friendship, patience, support and invaluable advice in the preparation of this thesis; to Richard Greenwood and Professor E-A. Millar for their waim encouragement; to Maria Bianca Tortorizio for the extended loan of her Laureate Thesis; to Professor Cesare Molinari and Maria Russo for loaning me books and for many an interesting argument; to Amal Chatterjee for helping me beat the computer into submission; to my wife Anneli for her editing suggestions (always right!) and for putting up with her absentee husband; and to my mother for always believing I could do it. ProQuest Number: 10390562 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10390562 Published by ProQuest LLO (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 C^z. glASGOW ONivEpsnr IIbraby ABSTRACT OF THESIS Comedy and the Counter-Reformation: an examination of the relationship between the changing moral ambience of Cinquecento Italy and the evolution of the non-tragic erudite drama relating this to the forms taken by English Renaissance comedy. This is divided into six areas broadly presented chronologically: the Humanist comedy - bawdy in tone and language and centred on the Go-Between; mixed-genre experiments, e.g. pastorale and Giraldi's tragedia difin lieto, and the gradual de-emphasising of the Go- Between's role to meet the changing moral climate of the Counter-Reformation; the commedie gravi of Sforza Oddi, with emphasis on the moral contrast between attività and passività, passionate but chaste heroines, and the marginalisation of the Go- Between; Shakespeare, his use of Italian forms, and his carrying-over of Counter- Reformation ideals; the use by Jonson and the Satirists of Italian sources and typology and their divergence from these models; and the continuation in the Fletcherian Tragicomedy of structures and morality typical of the comedies of Counter-Reformation Italy. The thesis highlights the influence of Italian literary culture, and thereby the influence of the Counter-Refoimation, on the structures, typology and moral tone of the English comedy. CONTENTS Page Introduction: 1 Aims of thesis, Literaiy and historical background. Chapter I: Mezzani in the early Cinquecento 13 Neo-Plauto-Terentian comedy. The mezzano. Bawdy language and action Chapter II: "A solemn jest..." Innovation and Mixed-Genre 64 Pastoral and Mixed-Genre Comedy Reducing the focus on the mezzano Movement from pagan to Christian values Chapter III: Commedia grave: Sforza Oddi and the Missing Mezzano 112 Sforza Oddi's comedies attività versus passivité Marginalisation of the mezzano The passionate heroine Providential resolution Chapter IV: William Shakespeare: "Happy in the Italian"? 151 Shakespeare's Catholicism Influence of the Controriformal Italianate features in Shakespeare's comedies Chapter V: A Mirror of Its Time?: Satirical Comedy and Its Use of Italian Sources 188 Jonson, Marston and Middleton Use of Italianate typology and literary sources Divergence from Italian practice Chapter VI: The Anglo-Italian Tragicomedy 227 The Fletcherian Tragicomedy Its Italianate characteristics, particularly its use of the conventions of pastorale and commedia grave Conclusion 258 Bibliography 260 INTRODUCTION: 1 ■ Aims of This Thesis The aims of this thesis are as follows: (1) to examine the evolution of the Italian non-tragic drama in the sixteenth century with paiTicular emphasis on the chai acter of the Go-Between; (2) to relate that evolution to the Counter-Reformation and the Post-Tridentine morality; (3) to examine the effects of 16th centuiy Italian non-tragic drama on the English theatre as represented by Shakespeare, Jonson and the Satirical School, and the Fletcherian Tragicomedy; (4) to demonstrate that the mixed-genre comedy of the English Renaissance draws substantially on Italian models and therefore, to some extent, reflects the influence of Counter-Reformation ideology. 2. Dramatic Background: The Plauto-Terentian Comedy The Italian vernacular comedy of the Renaissance was, in the first part of the Cinquecento, generally based on Plauto-Terentian models; that is to say a five-act structure incorporating the regular order of protasis (exposition), epitasis (complication), and catastrophe (resolution) wherein a normally not-overly-bright innamorato employs a cunning Go-Between to remove or circumvent the obstacles which prevent him enjoying his love. Following Terentian practice, the love intrigues were often doubled or tripled to furnish a greater complexity and a concomitantly larger number of oppormnities for comic confusion. The farce, initially a competing form, blended the native cojitrasti (a type of popular comical dialogue) and maggi (rustic or peasant plays performed at local festivals) with neoclassical elements from Plautus and Terence. It mingled mediaeval allegory with 1 classical mythology and frequently employed regional dialects to humorous effect. The farce generally became absorbed in the learned comedy, supplying the local colour that Plautus and Terence lacked. The bawdiness of Italian popular culture, mirrored in literature since Boccaccio, was veiy much part of this local colour and gave the Italian comedy a sexual content, both in language and deed, which frequently exceeded that present in its classical forebears. Since the motor of the comic action was the Go-Between or mezzano, it was inevitable that the lax morality and obscene expression which came to characterise much of the genre became most closely identified with this chai'acter. While the classical servus or parasitas concerned himself primarily with his young master's romantic problems - noimally in the hope of freedom or a good meal - the mezzano was just as likely to have an affair going himself with a cook or female attendant. His language, and that of the comic sub-cast in general, was, more often than not, larded with casual obscenity and innuendo; his endless scheming, aimed, as it generally was, at the confounding of a conventionally elderly paterfamilias, inevitably dramatically subverted ideas of filial respect - the more so when we consider the greater licence enjoyed by the Humanist dramatists compared to their Classical forebears; while the diminished importance of chattel slavery in Renaissance Italy meant that the rewaids gained by the mezzano were frequently of a financial nature thus adding cupidity to the mezzano's catalogue of venality - a cupidity often identifiable, as in the case of Machiavelli's Prate Timoteo, with corruption. Mezzani were not always successful in their endeavours, Lo errore (1555) by Giovan Battista Gelli,"* for example, shows the bawd Pacifica mistaking an address and thus inadvertently revealing all to her client's wife; occasionally they deliberately mocked their employer's amorous intent by setting him up for a fall (after, normally, assuring themselves of their fee) - this occurs in Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena's La Calandria (1513)2 wherein Fessenio convinces the elderly fool Calandro that the Necromancer Ruffo can make him temporarily die, be carried 'dead' into his beloved's home, and then be miraculously revived; and the mezzano, if cheated of payment, might also try to obstruct the lovers' union - as does Ariosto's Lena^ when her cash is not forthcoming. Nevertheless the logic of the plot depended on their presence, and they are central to its 2 comic aspects which, proceeding directly or indirectly from the mezzano's generally scurrilous speech and behaviour, were usually of a bawdy nature. The combination of the double or triple plot, the much-decreased importance of slavery in Italian society, and the tendency to update the milieu of the comedia to present a Ciceronian 'mirror of the times' created dramatic space for a variety of mezzani based on traditional and current Types, the most common of which were: the Parasite, the Nurse/Governess, the Male Servant, the Female Servant, the Porter or facchino, the Corrupt Parent, the Witch-Bawd (sometimes presented in male form, e.g. Ruffo - see above) and the Corrupt Priest. In the light of this typology, it is evident that the mezzano's activities frequently implied breaches of trust: a Nurse or Servant would connive against their mistress's chastity; a Parent would put material security before a daughter's virtue; a Priest would abuse the power of the Church to abet the seduction of a virgin.
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