Anglo-Italian Renaissance Studies Series

Shakespeare and Venice is the first book length study to describe and chronicle the mythology of Venice that was formulated in the Middle Ages and has persisted in fiction and film to the present day. Graham Holderness focuses specifically on how that mythology was employed by Shakespeare to explore themes of conversion, change, and metamorphosis. Identifying and outlining the materials having to do with Venice which might have been available to Shakespeare, Holderness provides a full historical account of past and present Venetian myths and of the city's relationship with both Judaism and Islam. Holderness also provides detailed readings of both The Merchant of Venice and of Othello against these mythical and historical dimensions, and concludes with discussion of Venice's relevance to both the modern world and to the past.

Visions of Venice in Shakespeare

Published 28 January 2011

Despite the growing critical relevance of Shakespeare's two Venetian plays and a burgeoning bibliography on both The Merchant of Venice and Othello, few books have dealt extensively with the relationship between Shakespeare and Venice. Setting out to offer new perspectives to a traditional topic, this timely collection fills a gap in the literature, addressing the new historical, political and economic questions that have been raised in the last few years. The essays in this volume consider Venice a real as well as symbolic landscape that needs to be explored in its multiple resonances, both in Shakespeare's historical context and in the later tradition of reconfiguring one of the most represented cities in Western culture. Shylock and Othello are there to remind us of the dark sides of the myth of Venice, and of the inescapable fact that the issues raised in the Venetian plays are tremendously topical; we are still haunted by these theatrical casualties of early modern multiculturalism.

Shakespeare and Rome

by Graham Holderness

Published 31 December 2023

In the first full length study to relate Shakespeare's Roman works to a longer history of the city of Rome, author Graham Holderness reads Shakespeare's Roman works"Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus"via a double perspective, the ancient and the modern. He argues that for Shakespeare, Rome was not simply the republic and empire of antiquity, but a contemporary place that possessed its own meanings, retained its own legacies from the past, and was in the process of generating new meanings. Holderness presents a new take on the conflicts fought out in the plays, proposing that they were not just ancient Roman conflicts with relevance for sixteenth-century England, but were also shaped in early modern encounters with Rome as a place of fallen greatness and cultural revival, of growing ecclesiastical power, and of consolidating religious authority. He explains the ambivalence towards Rome that speaks throughout the Roman works, less in terms of the conflicts between ancient writers over the grounds of republican and imperial visions, and more in terms of St Augustine's polarization of Rome into earthly and heavenly cities, of sixteenth-century Rome's cultural and aesthetic character, and of the tense relationship for English Catholics between Protestant and papal authority. Finally the book extends the perspective to include the range of modern meanings attributed to Rome, and shows how these enter into critical readings, theatrical performances and screen adaptations of Shakespeare's Roman works.