Summary:

"This first book-length study to trace the evolution of the comic old
man in Italian and English Renaissance comedy shows how English
dramatists adopted and reimagined an Italian model to reflect native
concerns about and attitudes toward growing old. Anthony Ellis
provides an in-depth study of the comic old man in the erudite comedy
of sixteenth-century Florence; the character's parallel development
in early modern Venice, including the commedia dell'arte; and, along
with a consideration of Anglo-Italian intertextuality, the
character's subsequent flourishing on the Elizabethan and Jacobean
stage. In outlining the character's development, Ellis identifies and
describes the physical and behavioral characteristics of the comic
old man and situates these traits within early modern society by
considering prevailing medical theories, sexual myths, and
intergenerational conflict over political and economic circumstances.
The plays examined include Italian dramas by Bernardo Dovizi da
Bibbiena, Niccol Ṃachiavelli, Donato Giannotti, Lorenzino de' Medici,
Andrea Calmo, and Flaminio Scala, and English works by William
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Dekker, along with Middleton,
Rowley, and Heywood's The Old Law. Besides providing insight into
stage representations of aging, this book illuminates how early
modern people conceived of and responded to the experience of growing
old and its social, economic, and physical challenges."--Publisher's
description.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

'All the world is of this humor': senescence and melancholy in
Shakespeare's England and the case of King Lear -- Old age and the
uses of comedy: Bibbiena's Calandra and Shakespeare's Merry Wives of
Windsor -- Comedy and Florentine politics: the problem of generations
-- Andrea Calmo, Renaissance Venice, and the challenge of the
gerontocratic ideal -- 'Caso unico nel mondo delle Maschere' the
comic mutations of the Pantalone mask in Flaminio Scala's Commedia
dell' Arte scenarios -- Jonson's Alchemist and Dekker's Old
Fortunatus: magic, mortality and the debasement of (the golden) age
-- Old age and the Utopian project: The Tempest and The Old Law.

Classification:

(click to see other 'Books on the Same Shelf')

Dewey Class: 822.309354 -- English drama
LCC Number: PR658

Book Details:

Language: eng
Physical Description: 190 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Edition Info: (alk. paper)

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Subjects:

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•	Aging in literature (55)
•	Aging -- Public opinion -- History -- 16th century (2)
•	Aging -- Public opinion -- History -- 17th century (2)
•	Arts & Photography -- Performing Arts -- Theater -- History & Criticism (1121)
•	English drama -- 17th century -- History and criticism (566)
•	English drama (Comedy) -- History and criticism (171)
•	English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism (747)
•	English drama -- Italian influences (24)
•	Italian drama (Comedy) -- History and criticism (24)
•	Italian drama -- To 1700 -- History and criticism (32)
•	Literature & Fiction -- Drama -- British & Irish -- General (1006)
•	Literature & Fiction -- Drama -- History (640)
•	Literature & Fiction -- World Literature -- British -- Shakespeare (1302)
•	Literature & Fiction -- World Literature -- Italian (585)
•	Old age in literature (63)

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Libraries this book has an entry in:

•	Berry College (Mount Berry, GA) (last modified on 08/05/2011)
•	Indiana University (last modified on 09/06/2010)