Old Age, Masculinity, and Early Modern Drama : Comic Elders on the Italian and Shakespearean Stage (Paperback)

Contents: Introduction; 'All the world is of this humor': senescence and melancholy in Shakespeare's England and the case of King Lear; Old age and the uses of comedy: Bibbiena's Calandra and Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor; Comedy and Florentine politics: the problem of generations; Andrea Calmo, Renaissance Venice, and the challenge of the gerontocratic ideal; 'Caso unico nel mondo delle Maschere' the comic mutations of the Pantalone mask in Flaminio Scala's Commedia dell' Arte scenarios; Jonson's Alchemist and Dekker's Old Fortunatus: magic, mortality and the debasement of (the golden) age; Old age and the Utopian project: The Tempest and The Old Law; Bibliography; Index.