G. B. Basile's Fairy-Tale Collection and Theatre Forms Staged in the Baroque: Motifs and Intertexts
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Similarly to novels or fairy-tales, the Baroque drama reflects the entire life as in process. In most cases, it does not respect the unity of place, time and action, nor does it respect the purity of genres. Baroque on the Mediterranean stage shows a great variety of theatre forms: on one hand there are court performances staged on the occasion of various important celebrations (pastoral plays, tragicomedies, operas, etc.), while on the other, troupes of professional actors are touring the Mediterranean area with their own improvised plays, known as commedia dell'arte. This paper focuses on tracing the Baroque theatricality in the storytelling, especially on the search of theatrical elements or motifs and the intertexts between various theatre forms and fairy-tales. G. B. Basile moves from court to court and writes poems, musical dramas and pastoral plays for his patrons, as prominent scholars used to do. This activity is an existential necessity for him, while, presumably for his own pleasure, he collects inspiration in various places in Italy, which he is in charge of, and writes Lo Cunto de li Cunti, a collection of the first literary European fairy-tales that will make him famous posthumously. The direct allusions as well as possible influences of theatre forms on comic and tragicomic situations in Basile's fairy-tales will be discussed in detail. |
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