A Feast of Strange Opinions: Classical and Early Modern Paradoxes on the English Renaissance Stage

This volume originates as a continuation of the previous volume in the CEMP series (1.1) and aims at furthering scholarly interest in the nature and function of theatrical paradox in early modern plays considering how classical paradoxical culture was received in Renaissance England as well as the contributions of the Digital Humanities to the field. The book is articulated into three sections: the first, “Paradoxical Culture and Drama”, is devoted to an investigation of classical definitions of paradox and the dramatic uses of paradox in ancient Greek drama; the second, “Paradoxes in/of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama” looks at the functions and uses of paradox in the play-texts of Shakespeare and his contemporaries; finally, the essays in “Paradoxes in Drama and the Digital” examine how the Digital Humanities can enrich our knowledge of paradoxes in classical and early modern drama.

Marco Duranti is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Verona. His present research focuses on the reception of ancient Greek literature in early modern England. Emanuel Stelzer is a researcher in English Literature at the same university, whose main research areas are early modern drama and literature, textual studies, and theatre history.