Description
Book SynopsisTaking cross-disciplinary and comparative approaches to the volume's subject, this exciting collection of essays offers a reassessment of Shakespeare's erotic and Ovidian mythology within classical and continental aesthetic contexts. Through extensive examination of mythological visual and textual material, scholars explore the transmission and reinvention of Ovidian eroticism in Shakespeare's plays to show how early modern artists and audiences collectively engaged in redefining ways of thinking pleasure. Within the collection's broad-ranging investigation of erotic mythology in Renaissance culture, each chapter analyses specific instances of textual and pictorial transmission, reception, and adaptation. Through various critical strategies, contributors trace Shakespeare's use of erotic material to map out the politics and aesthetics of pleasure, unravelling the ways in which mythology informs artistic creation. Received acceptions of neo-platonic love and the Petrarchan tensions of u
Trade Review’This collection of essays adds much to our knowledge of the many ways in which Ovid, the sexiest poet of late Antiquity, influenced Shakespeare, the sexiest poet of the late sixteenth century. [...]One would like to think that this timely and important volume consisting of essays that are all of equal strength could encourage further research in the creative appropriation of Ovid in England through continental routes of influence, especially with a critical eye on how Ovid shaped fictions and languages of sexuality, and how crucial the impact of his writing was on the expanding notions of the body in early modernity.’ CATHIERS '... this is an inspiring and often-fascinating volume.' Renaissance Quarterly '... the collection will be of interest to scholars of literature, as well as scholars of the visual and plastic arts, whose geographic focus includes England and larger Western Europe. ... scholars will find that this collection contains many new insights and also points to new directions in the study of Ovid in the Renaissance.' Sixteenth Century Journal
Table of ContentsContents: Introduction: interacting with Eros: Ovid and Shakespeare, Agnes Lafont; Part I Erotic Aesthetics and Printing Politics: Ovid's 'meta-metamorphosis': book illustration and the circulation of erotic iconographical patterns, Ilaria Andreoli; Political uses of erotic power in an Elizabethan mythological programme: dangerous interactions with Diana in Hardwick Hall, Agnes Lafont. Part II Shakespeare's Erotic Power of Imagination: Erotic fancy/fantasy in Venus and Adonis, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Anthony and Cleopatra, Francois Laroque; Erotic perspectives: when Pyramus and Thisbe meet Hero and Leander in Romeo and Juliet, Janice Valls-Russell. Part III Shakespeare's Erotic Power of Recreation (and Miscreation): Parodic Interactions with Darker Desires: Priapus in Shakespeare: luxuriant gardens and luxurious brothels, Frederic Delord; Parody and the erotic beast: relocating Titania and Bottom, Stuart Sillars; Flirting with Erotic Taboos: Cupid, infantilism and maternal desire on the early modern stage, Jane Kingsley-Smith; Queering Pygmalion: Ovid, Euripides and The Winter's Tale, Sarah Annes Brown; Deadly Rapture: The 'new Gorgon': Eros, terror. and violence in Macbeth, Marguerite Tassi. Part IV Coda: Femmina masculo e masculo femmina: Ovidian mythical structures, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and As You Like It, Yves Peyre; General bibliography; Index.
