“Translated out of Italian”. From Pasqualigo to Munday: Rewriting italian comedy in Elizabethan England

Abstract

Renata Oggero’s article proposes an analysis of the English adaptation of Luigi Pasqualigo’s comedy, Il Fedele, placing that adaptation in relation to two other contemporary reworkings of that same play, one in French, the other in Latin. The article explores the hypothesis that in Elizabeth I’s England, Italian theatre constituted an extremely rich repertoire of highly emulable models upon which English authors continuously drew, not simply translating, but also adapting and reworking Italian materials. In addition to analysing the ambiguous notion of translation in the England of that period, this essay explores the re–creative function of “translating” as a means of renewing or inventing a new dramaturgic tradition within a different linguistic tradition.