Unmasking Shakespeare: Commedia dell¿Arte in Shakespearean Plays

Shakespearean plays and Commedia dell¿Arte, improvised theater originating sixteenth-century Italy, are two distinct forms of performance with common origins, characters, and structure. Although modern scholars can refer to the 1623 Folio as source documentation for the Bard¿s work, commedia was unscripted from its origins through Shakespeare¿s lifetime, preventing a comparison of dialogue. We do, however, we have illustrations of commedia performances in the Recuil Fossard, reprinted in Ducharte¿s The Italian Comedy. This book attempts to bring together examples from those works, and new additions to the conversation, allowing modern researchers the ability to recognize similarities in what appear at first glance to be diverse forms of theater.