THE MYTH OF VENICE IN ENGLISH DRAMA OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (RENAISSANCE)

This dissertation examines the myth of Venice as it functions in English drama during the period from 1595 to the closing of the theatres in 1642. Venice is unique in the manner and extent to which it consciously manipulated its own image at home and abroad, through its religious celebrations, its civic rituals, its public spaces, its sculpture, visual art, and architecture. This active and sophisticated involvement on the part of the government and its citizens resulted in a continuity of themes and images over many centuries. The "Myth of Venice" is this image, which Venetians crafted with such care that it acquired the richness, complexity, and coherence of a work of art.In England, Venice was an important component of the English Renaissance interest in Italy--a fascination composed of hatred, envy, fear, and attraction. For the dramatist, Venice provided many possibilities as a setting because of the contradictory elements of its reputation. Venice was an experimental space, an arena where any new idea could be tested, where any new experience could be sampled. The second part of the dissertation consists of analyses of individual English plays which were set in Venice: Antonio and Mellida, Antonio's Revenge, What You Will, The Insatiate Countess, The Merchant of Venice, Othello, Volpone, Blurt, Master-Constable, The Novella, and The Gentleman of Venice.English dramatists put Venice to a variety of uses. Attractive and dangerous, alluring and repellant, Venice offered theatrical possibilities from the sublime to the vulgar. Its chief usefulness to the English playwright was as the projected future of English society, which could then be critically examined. Venice was a laboratory in which Shakespeare, Jonson, Marston and others could test their ideas about social change.The first part of this dissertation examines the myth of Venice belonging to the Venetians, and firmly establishes the nature and character of the Venetian process of self-portrayal in ritual, history, architecture, painting and sculpture. An intermediary chapter examines the manner in which the image of Venice was transmitted to England through histories, political writings, and travel literature.