Shakespeare romantico: vicende della ricezione dalla tragedia al melodramma

The years between 1800 and 1875 mark the rise of Italy’s intense interest in Shakespeare, as well as his crowning as a symbol of poetic genius and national grandeur. The mainstream culture of the Italian literary Ottocento may be seen as involving a gradual, and often embattled shift from the admiration of French and Neoclassical norms to German and Romantic aesthetics. When Italian Romantic writers and critics began to advocate that literature be judged in terms of closeness to nature and the expression of genuine emotions, they turned to Shakespeare as the embodiment of their ideals. In this chapter I have discussed some crucial aspects of this cultural and aestetic turning point, and focus on the specificity of the Romantic reception of Shakespeare. The rejection of canonical (Neoclassical) aesthetic norms meant that spontaneity was highly valued instead, and was considered a necessary pre-condition for the proper identification of the reader-spectator with both the hero and the author. This kind of participatory economy in the reception of Shakespeare, and of literature in general, influenced actors, as well as critics and translators. The almost exclusive interest in the character, often sentimentalized and/ or pathologized, determined a “melodramatic” reception of the tragedies, and “domesticated” them at the expense of their wider, and intrinsically tragic political and metaphysical significance. On the other hand, this approach determined the subsequent popularity of “the Bard of Stratford” in both intellectual circles and the wider public of theatre audiences.