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Five Italian Renaissance Comedies (Penguin Classics)

par Bruce Penman (Directeur de publication)

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These five plays are a delight from beginning to end, with hardly a dull moment. In the first four plays renaissance society is laid before us and subjected to a satire that is hardly ever gentle and mostly biting. The fifth play is quite different; a pastoral comedy written in rhyming couplets or triplets, which at times reads like a hymn to nature, but a nature full of sensuality.

The Mandragola by Niccolo Machiavelli 1469-1527
This is a very well worked play that has had a number of performances in modern times. It is a dramatisation of a tale that could have come straight out of Boccacio’s Decameron. The story is a popular one: Callimaco has just returned to Florence from Paris after hearing stories of the fabulously beautiful Lucrezia, who is married to Messer Nicia an elderly gentleman. He is driven mad by passion for Nicia’s wife, but she is an honest woman and will have nothing to do with him. Ligurio a parasitical friend of Callimaco comes up with a plan which takes advantage of Lucrezia’s desperation to have children. The plan involves a friar (frate Timoteo), there is much dressing up, there is Ligurio’s ability to think on his feet, when things go wrong and moments of high comedy when Nicia is played for the old fool that he is. It all ends happily for everyone except Messer Nicia who becomes a reluctant cuckold. Machiavelli directs most of his satire towards the clergy, who in the shape of friar Timoteo is easily persuaded to take part in the adulterous schemes, but elderly husbands also come in for some stick.

Lena by Ludovico Ariosto 1474-1533
Another story of the seduction of a young girl, (Licinia) but this time she does not appear as a character in the play. Lena is her protector and has her own axe to grind against her miserly married lover and men in general. However she is happy to go along with plans for the seduction of Licinia if she can profit from it as well. There are plenty of farcical situations involving men hiding in barrels, locked doors, disguises and cunning plans. Much is made of the resourceful Lena and the servants to the gentlemen lovers, who always seem to be one step ahead. Ariosto takes time out to side swipe the judiciary and courtiers in perhaps the most gentle of the satires.

The Stablemaster by Pietro Aretino 1492-1556
This is perhaps the most audacious of the satires, with Aretino going to town on almost all aspects of renaissance life. The plot centres on a particularly cruel and elaborate joke played on the stablemaster to the Prince of the city. The stablemaster has no time for courtiers, fancy women, and anybody else connected to the Princes retinue and his followers and he lets forth a stream of invective against all his tormentors. The Dialogue is witty and fast moving and the satire bites. Aretino must have felt very secure in his position in society to risk the barbs that he delivers here and he also does not miss a chance at self promotion; for example including his own name among the great artists that one of his characters lists.

The Deceived by Gl’Intronati di Siena (A sixteenth century Literary Society)
A play written by a committee perhaps, but they must have had plenty of fun putting this down on paper. A comedy about star crossed lovers and mistaken identity that formed the basic plot that Shakespeare used for his Twelfth Night. It is bawdy, funny and farcical by turns and has some scintillating dialogue. It contains the immortal line from the elderly Virginio who reproaches his wife for saying that a friend of his is too old for a certain woman.

“What does that matter? I’m not far off the same age myself, and you should know whether I can still keep my lance steady in the rest or not”

Nuns and life in the convent is the butt of much satire, with some interesting pointers to the power that an Abbess or Prioress might wield in renaissance society. This bawdy humorous story is fun to read..

The Faithful Shepherd by Giambattista Guarini 1538-1612
The longest play which is very different from the others in this collection. It is the beauty of the language that captures the attention here. The translation by Richard Fanshawe was made in 1647 and he has kept the rhyming couplets and on occasion triplets to produce a text that flows beautifully. The play is set in Arcadia in a sort of Greek antiquity and comes complete with a Greek chorus. The hurly-burly and bawdiness of renaissance Italy has been replaced by a more natural landscape. There is wit and plenty of human nature present in the characters, but the satire has gone. The play sounds gorgeous and works quite well despite a few longueurs.

This penguin classic edition has collected some fine plays from renaissance Italy. They are edited by Bruce Penman who is also responsible for a couple of the translations. He provides a short half page introduction to the authors of each of the plays and a short introduction to the collection as a whole. Really the plays speak for themselves and I was thoroughly entertained. A four star read. ( )
2 voter baswood | Jan 23, 2013 |
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Nom de l'auteurRôleType d'auteurŒuvre ?Statut
Penman, BruceDirecteur de publicationauteur principaltoutes les éditionsconfirmé
Aretino, Pietroauteur secondairetoutes les éditionsconfirmé
Ariosto, Ludovicoauteur secondairetoutes les éditionsconfirmé
Gl'Intronatiauteur secondairetoutes les éditionsconfirmé
Guarini, Giambattistaauteur secondairetoutes les éditionsconfirmé
Machiavelli, Niccoloauteur secondairetoutes les éditionsconfirmé
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