Among the acknowledged sources of Twelfth Night there is Bandello’s novella of Nicuola and Lattanzio, which might have arrived to Shakespeare via Belleforest’s French translation (1579), or the English adaptation in Barnaby Riche’s Farewell to Militarie Profession (1581). In Bandello, as in his translators, the exchange of the two twins, which is the core of the story, appears to need some explaining away, and Bandello has a long prologue in which he invokes the folly generated by love, citing as instances the Greek gods, but yet insisting on the maraviglia of the love generated by a young woman dressed up as a young man. One can only imagine the appeal this kind of story would have for a playwright investigating, for very practical reasons, the space of ambiguous desire on the stage: what for Bandello is a maraviglia that requires careful explanation, for Shakespeare is a theatrical opportunity.
Twelfth Night e la Novella II.36 di Matteo Bandello
PETRINA, ALESSANDRA
2017
Abstract
Among the acknowledged sources of Twelfth Night there is Bandello’s novella of Nicuola and Lattanzio, which might have arrived to Shakespeare via Belleforest’s French translation (1579), or the English adaptation in Barnaby Riche’s Farewell to Militarie Profession (1581). In Bandello, as in his translators, the exchange of the two twins, which is the core of the story, appears to need some explaining away, and Bandello has a long prologue in which he invokes the folly generated by love, citing as instances the Greek gods, but yet insisting on the maraviglia of the love generated by a young woman dressed up as a young man. One can only imagine the appeal this kind of story would have for a playwright investigating, for very practical reasons, the space of ambiguous desire on the stage: what for Bandello is a maraviglia that requires careful explanation, for Shakespeare is a theatrical opportunity.
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