Amazon.com description: Product Description: Italy loomed large on the English Renaissance stage. But what did Italy signify to these playwrights and their audiences? Renaissance scholars from around the world each contribute a different perspective to this central question. This collection of essays covers the four main topics: "Images and Culture', "Themes and Tradition", "Venice", and "Language and Ideology". Among the contributors are Harry Levin, J.R. Mulryne, Georgio Melchiori, Leo Salingar, Agostino Lombardo, Avraham Oz and Manfred Pfister. By challenging traditional readings of the subject, "Shakespeare's Italy" enables the students to view the exploitation of the Italian setting as a structural constituent of Renaissance drama, the moral and political implications of its use and its meaning for a contemporary as well as an Elizabethan audience. This text is aimed at lecturers and researchers in Renaissance literature and Shakespeare studies.