Assess The Influences Of Italy And Spain On ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ Essay, Research Paper

It has been estimated that at least one third of the plays performed between 1549 and 1640 had either Italian sources or locations. In most cases it was both. The influence of Italian literature on<+”> Much Ado About Nothing<-”> is reasonably clear. Even bearing in mind the freedom and licence which Renaissance adapters brought to their work, it seems likely that Bandello’s version, “>La Prima Parte de la Novelle del Bandello”> (1554) was the one which Shakespeare used. The Sicilian setting for “>Much Ado”> is probably the most convincing evidence for this judgement. Bandello’s story has a number of main themes: class conflict, the role of Fortune and the rival claims of male friendship and marriage. These themes, particularly the last one, certainly form a part of “>Much Ado”>. Yet the play is more concerned to explore the power and persistence of illusions. Some of the differences between Bandello’s story and Shakespeare’s play can be seen as attempts to heighten the theatricality of Messinese society, for instance the inclusion of a denunciation scene. Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that “>Much Ado”> has been influenced by Italian literature, whether it is that of Bandello, Ariosto or Castiglione. It has been suggested that the play is Shakespeare’s most Italian, or Italianate. “Much Ado “>illustrates the cultural and political mix of Renaissance Italy better than many other plays, such as “>Othello”> and “>Romeo and Juliet”>. The scene may be set exclusively in Messina but the parts represent, if not quite a league of nations, than at least a wide variety of backgrounds and allegiances. Don Pedro and Don John represent the territor ial and cultural power of the Hapsburgs. Claudio is a young Florentine, whereas Benedick is a gentleman from Padua. Conrade and Borachio are of unspecified origin, although their actions suggest that they would be quite at home in a sink of depravity like Venice. The play also introduces native Sicilians such as Leonato, Hero and Beatrice. There is, then, a case for seeing Much Ado as an Italianate play. It has to be remembered, however, that for Shakespeare’s audiences Italianate was a pejorative term. So it is perfectly possible for Much Ado to be both an Italianate play and an intensely English or chauvinistic one. The chauvinism of a play like “>Henry V “>is difficult to explain away, but there has been a certain amount of critical special pleading to try to exempt Shakespeare’s Italian plays from such a charge. It is sometimes claimed that, whilst his contemporary dramatists were content to wallow in blood-and-thunder interpretations of Italian life, he came closer to representing the kind of idyllic version associated with Ariosto and Castiglione. According to such an interpretation, Shakespeare can still be seen as a humanist even though his contemporaries were little better than thriller-writers. In other words, Shakespeare has to share the same prejudices as his critics. It is more likely, however, that he had the same prejudices as his contemporaries. Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists emphasised the steamy, seamy side of Italian life. This is what their audiences loved to hate. Romeo and Juliet, despite later attempts to sentimentalise it, offers a ‘drugs and damnation’, ‘poison and passion’ interpretation of Italian life. Juliet’s mother may be rather ineffectual, but at least she knows the right lines: We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not. Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua, Where that same banished runagate doth live, Shall give him such an unaccustomed dram That he shall soon keep Tybalt company. And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied. (III.v.87-92)The play’s revenge theme is accompanied by familiar Italianate parts and props: swaggering swordsmen, dubious friars, stifling vaults and festering shrouds. Italy excited the theatrical imagination not just because it provided an ideal location for depravity. Its appeal lay in a particular combination of the splendid and the sordid. Shakespeare was most interested in relationships between noble ideas and sordid realities: the Italians may grovel in the mud but they are also reaching for the sky. This double vision controls <+”>The Tempest. <-”>Prospero, the great Renaissance magus, allows himself to become the victim of city-state politics and is expelled from Milan by Antonio and the King of Naples. Italian life is therefore represented as a mixture of sophistication and cunning, high learning and low morality. Such an interpretation is itself more sophisticated than those which merely emphasise cunning and intrigue, but is nevertheless hardly an idyllic one.There were more prosaic reasons for the popularity of Italian themes and locations. Dramatists were able to escape the unwelcome attentions of the Master of the Revels, who acted as an official censor, if their scene was set in Italy. A parody of an Italian court was fair game, whereas one of the Elizabethan Court itself was foul treason. Given the Italianate influences on Elizabethan high society in the 1590s, stage representations of Italy could fulfil two separate functions. They could reinforce chauvinistic prejudices, whilst at the same time they could also be satirizing contemporary English values. Although modern interpretations of the Italian Renaissance deal extensively with Florentine civilisation, Shakespeare’s contemporaries were not well informed about such cultural achievements. They knew more about Florentine politics than painting. Indeed,English travellers to Italy in the sixteenth century paid little attention to painting. Florence therefore served as a more general location for Italianate manners and morals. Bertram, in “>All’s Well That Ends Well, “>leaves ‘the dark house and the detested wife (II.iii.290) in France and escapes to Florence. He is after excitement rather than knowledge. Florence, in contrast to the decaying French Court, is young and vigorous. It offers plenty of action as a result of city-state feuds. Bertram also hopes to be able to combine this with a bit of lust on the side. Shakespeare’s audiences, some of whom may have made their own escape from ‘the dark house and the detested wife’, expected their theatrical trip to Florence to show fast living rather than high learning. In general, Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences liked to laugh at Italian courtiers and hiss Italian villains. Italy was rarely if ever presented in purely humanistic terms. Its inhabitants were seen as being hot, volatile, temperamental, vain and cunning. Spiritual as well as physical danger was usually in the air since, as the home of Popery, Italy was a potential threat to all Protestants. The potent theatrical combination of religious cloaks, political daggers and courtly finery created an attraction and repulsion for the Italianate. Italy itself represented a poisoned fountain, at which addicted theatre audiences queued up to try to slake an unquenchable thirst for the exotic, exciting and entertaining. Shakespeare may not have written Italianate ‘nasties’ in the style of Webster, but is nevertheless closer to the prejudices of his contemporaries than his humanistic admirers are prepared to admit.

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