ABSTRACT
In the early decades of the eighteenth century, the Italian critic and scientist Antonio Conti showed an incipient interest in Shakespeare, having come into contact with English literature in London, where he had settled in 1715 in the hope of making the acquaintance of a renowned colleague, Isaac Newton. The final decades of the eighteenth century, then, might be characterized by an effort to establish Shakespeare's canonicity on philological, linguistic grounds. The verdict is typical of the lukewarm reception of Shakespeare—routinely read through French and German intermediary translations, rather than the English original—whereby strictures against his "irregularity", especially his disregard of classical unities, tend to dominate. Notably, Alessandro Verri's translation stands apart from contemporary translations and adaptations of Shakespeare into European vernaculars. Conceived as texts for reading, and not commissioned by an actor as a script for performance, Verri's translations seem quite removed from the stage.
