ABSTRACT
Renaissance literature of sixteenth-century England occupies a unique position in the history of literary thought, form, and production. While Renaissance authors borrowed heavily from their medieval predecessors, they also strove to create a new tradition in an era of transition between the medieval and modern worlds. The competing tensions of the period, including the growing influence of secular individualism measured against the continued importance of communal religious identity, points to one of the ideological and social differences between these two worlds. Throughout his work, Shakespeare exploits these early modern sources of tension, the fluctuating political and social practices of the age, in order to dramatize a world in which individuals challenge their place within a changing society. While blatant criticism of English society may not have been feasible, one way Shakespeare accomplishes such a critique is in the appropriation of foreign cultures and settings throughout his work. As Peter Hulme and William H. Sherman have documented, ‘when Shakespeare and his contemporaries wanted to represent other European powers (or to represent English power through indirect means), they most often turned to Italy for the settings of their plays’.2 For Shakespeare and his contemporaries, using an Italian setting not only signalled engagement with the legacies of Renaissance Italy but also provided English writers a way of understanding their own values, traditions, and beliefs.
