Why has Carlo Gozzi been overshadowed by Carlo Goldoni
in the achievements of Commedia Dell'Arte?
Barasch, Frances. “Commedia dell’Arte.” Comedy: A Geographic And Historical Guide Vol 1, 2005, 233-247.
Barasch goes into great detail about the earliest professional troupes such as Zanini da Padova, and the Gelosi. He then discusses the “fixed types or masks” of each stock character and notable performers who either originated the roles or helped to influence them. Barasch also talks of the “Zanni, Pantalone, and Courtesan scenario popularized by the street players,” as well as the lazzi that was interspersed. There is a lot of scholarly research behind Barasch’s article that is very useful. Compared to the other articles I have read it’s easier to digest its contents. I find this article quite helpful because the author goes into significant detail about each stock character such as Brighella, Harlequin, Pulcinella, Pedrolino, Pantalone, Dottore. It has also given me better insight into the historical background of Commedia del’Arte and the lineages of its early families.
Beacham, Richard C. “An Audience in Search of a Theatre” The Roman Theatre and It’s Audience. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 1-26.
Beacham asks the questions: “How close are the language, appeareance and behaviour of the performers to ‘everyday life’? What use is made of costumes, props, and scenery? Is a set text followed, or do the actors improvise; are they permitted under the accepted conventions to step out of their roles? What distinctions are mean to be drawn between ‘real’ actions and exemplary ones?”(1) Beacham is a fine scholar, but the article is quite dense. There were a few flashing moments where he brought up some possible lineages to commedia dell’arte, but I was overwhelmed by the vastness of his research.
DiGaetani, John Louis. Carlo Gozzi: A life in the 18th Century Venetian Theater, an Afterlife in Opera. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2000. Print.
DiGaetanis book on Carlo Gozzi “aims to fill a real need in helping us understand his life, times, and achievement.”(1) Most significantly he discusses Gozzi’s attack on “new comedy” and his defense and soon revival of commedia dell’arte. DiGaetani sheds light on the three factors that he feels made it possible. First was the direct challenge from Goldoni to write a better play. And second, the famous Sacchi commedia dell’arte troupe was working in Venice at the time and had a lease on their own theater. DiGaetanis explains how Gozzi took fairy tales that everyone knew and wrote particular roles for the individual actors in the Sacchi company based on their skills. DiGaetanis presents a very useful source by delving into the life Gozzi without any hidden agenda. He merely presents the life of the man and how his influences on commedia may or may not have had the impact on the form he so desired. This is a very useful source because it explains why Gozzi uses some of commedia’s stock characters out of the conventional norms that seem dictated by other books I have read.
Duchartre, Pierre Louis. The Italian Comedy: The Improvisation Scenarios Lives Attributes Portraits and Masks of the Illustrious Characters of the Commedia dell’ Arte. Trans. Randolph T. Weaver. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1966. Print.
Duchartre traces commedia from its orgins to the techniques used by improvisers to the masks and scenarios used by the actors and troupes of its day. He goes into great detail in regards to stock characters and their “families”, other characters that became off shoots from the base characters. Duchartre provides a fantastic resource and lays out his information in a clear, accessible way. This book is a tremendous aid to my research because he uses a lot of pictures from artistis of the day that depicted commedia to support the text. It helps me to see how this art form might have played out during the period that it was staged.
Fisher, James. The Theatre of Yesterday and Tomorrow: Commedia Dell’Arte on the Modern Stage. Lampter, Dyfed, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd, 1992. Print.
In Fisher’s book he “attempts to examine the impact of diverse notions of commedia on theatrical artists in the majour cultures of Europe and North American since 1900.” Compared to other books on commedia he follows the same pattern of introducing its origins and stock characters. He goes further by referencing Goldoni and Gozzi and each of their contributions to either the decline or resurgence of commedia. The rest of the book relates commedia to the modern stage and how playwrights looked to commedia for inspiration. Most of the modern references don’t aid me in my research, but the section focusing on Goldoni and Gozzi certainly will.
Gozzi, Carlo. The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi. Trans. John Addington Symonds. Vol 1. London: John C. Nimmo, 1890. Print.
Symonds translated The Memoirs of Count Carlo Gozzi based off of the suggestion from publisher John C. Nimmo. Symonds goes further to explain his reservations about exploring the subject matter because he knew so little. But “the picturesque aspects of Venetian decadence allured my fancy.”(vi) What separates this book form the rest is that it is an actual account of Gozzi’s life. The information is only as reliable as the source it is coming from and in this case, that is Gozzi himself. Based on other readings I have done everything seems to fall in line with how events had played out in Gozzi’s life, in particular his work in commedia dell’Arte. I am not too sure how much this aids my research, but it provides wonderful anecdotal material to the time period and characters that I am studying.
Grantham, Barry. Commedia Plays: Scenarios Scripts Lazzi. London: Nick Hern Books, 2006. Print.
Grantham’s intentions for this book are to illustrate commedia and its scenarios and scripts for the purposes of workshop and classroom settings. Compared to other sources I have in my bibliography this probably the weakest. Though there are plenty of footnotes I have failed to find any list of credible sources. This source is not very help to my research and comes across as very juvenile and amateurish.
Griffiths, Bruce. “Sunset: from commedia del’arte to comedie italienne.” Studies in the Commedia Dell”Arte, 1993, 91-104.
Griffiths’ article uses the closing of the Theatre Italien in Paris in 1697 as the inciting incident to trace back the evolution and history of commedia. He does a fine job discussing how the Parisians made subtle differences to the playing of their stock characters, and others areas where they inserted their own theatrical beliefs of how scenarios should be played out. What I liked about this article was how the form and its commedia troupes struggled to survive in a landscape that was trying to reinvent itself. Instead of dying out, it changed as the times and fancies changed; commedia showed its resilience by adapting and having actors and writers at the helm to help steer that change.
Herrick, Marvin. Italian Comedy In the Renaissance. Urban, IL: The University of Illinois Press, 1960. Print.
Herrick’s purpose for writing this book was to give an account of the background and influence of early Italian comedic dramatists on Shakespeare and other comedic writers of that period. He finally comes to the conclusion that whether or not Shakespeare and other contemporaries strictly followed the principles of Learned Comedy or Serious Comedy they were no doubt inspired by the Italians to some certain degree. Herrick’s book certainly fits into my research though I am not entirely sure it would be one for the first few books I would reach for because there are others that are more tangible to my research.
Nicoll, Allardyce. The World of Harelequin: A Critical Study of the Commedia dell’Arte. London: Cambridge University Press, 1963. Print.
Nicoll’s book covers the topics of The Comedy of Skill, The Four Masks, The Rest of the Cast, The Comic Scene, and Triumph and Decline of the commedia stage. Nicoll provides a fantastic resource and lays out his information in a clear, accessible way. He explores the basic force of what was behind commedia and what made it so important for two centuries. This book is a tremendous aid to my research because he uses a lot of visual information to support the text. It helps me to see how this art form might have played out during the period that it was staged and why these characters remain so important.
Quinn, Michael L, “The Comedy of Reference: The Semiotics of Commedia Figures in Eigthteenth-Century Venice.” Theatre Journel 43:1, 1991, 70-92.
In this article Quinn “considers the condition of the artistic culture from a semiotic standpoint and suggests how the artistic controversy that has focused on Goldoni, and Carlo Gozzi, and the late Venetian painters relates to a problem of empirical reference that emerged at mid-century.” Quinn poses a great thesis and the information is very reliable but the article is quite dense for what I am researching. There where a few flashing moments where he brought up Venician culture was going through some kind of an identity crisis hence the clash between Goldoni and Gozzi in regards to commedia dell’arte but I was overwhelmed by the density of his research.
Rudlin, John. Commedia dell’Arte: An Actors Handbook. London: Routledge, 1995. Print.
Rudlin talks about the origins, the masks and the playing of commedia. He then discusses stock characters going into detail on the Zanni, The Old Men, The Lovers, Il Capitano, Columbia and other Major and Minor masked characters. Rudin does a great job breaking down commedia dell’Arte and its stock characters down into a clear text that is easy for even the casual reader. This is an excellent resource that I can use as the backbone to further explore my research.
Scala, Flaminio. The Commedia dell’Arte of Flaminio Scala: A Translation and Analysis of 30 Scenarios. Trans. Richard Andrews. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Print
Andrews provides the reader with a great biography of Flaminio Scala as well as a very thorough introduction to commedia dell’arte. He discusses the publication and format of Scala’s scenarios and introduces us to their repertoire elements. Those elements being individual fixed characters or roles, plots and scene repertoire how they would fit into the scenarios. The rest of the book is comprised of Scala’s scenarios comprised of all of those elements. It is a fascinating display of how these commedia troupes would go about devising their performances and how each element is so crucial to the next. This book helped me to understand the structured looseness of a scenario and of the commedia form.
Smith, Winifred. The Commedia Dell’arte: A Study in Italian Popular Comedy. New York: The Columbia University Press, 1912. Print.
Smith’s book provides a very broad but comprehensive overview of commedia dell’arte. He breaks down the origins of commedia by discussing the mountebanks and the academies and then he discusses some typical scenarios. Smith then moves on to explaining how commedia influenced France, Germany, and Austria, Spain in the 16th and 17th Centuries, and later Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Finally, he talks about the transformation of the commedia dell’art in regards to Goldoni and Gozzi and how it affected Parisian theater in the 17th and 18th Centuries. This book covers a wide range of information, which some does work for my research and some does not. I would have to just pick and choose which components are most vital.
Thacker, Jonathan. Role-Play and the World as Stage in the Comedia. Liverpool: Liverpool University Preee, 2002. Print.
In this book Thacker intends “to accept a definition of metatheatre as the dramatist’s creation of characters who are aware of the theatricality of life, who can act, who can play, who refuse to view themselves as predictable actors in a monolithic system of prescribed behavior.” The author seems to know a lot on this topic and is focusing more of his study on the Spanish Golden age. I was attracted to idea of the metatheatrical approach towards commedia because it seems to me that there might be some strong connection in terms of performance. This book just doesn’t have the proper segue for my research to make it useful, and just because the word comedia is in the title it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s referring to commedia dell’arte.
From my research there is not any conclusive evidence as to why Carlo Goldoni overshadows Carlo Gozzi. My only idea is that because Goldoni was a reformer of the commedia form or model he is held a slightly higher regard over Gozzi the known traditionalist.