ABSTRACT
Commedia dell'arte brought recognizable vernacular characters in domestic situations to the court and the popular theatre. Shakespeare synthesized aspects of commedia dell'arte types with personalized English characters to humanize in his plays. From the 1570s to the mid-1590s, comic figures were front and center in English comedies. The clowns, fools, and buffone opened with their own improvised scenarios, directly addressed the audience in asides and set pieces during plays, and closed shows with jigs. Shakespeare benefitted from exploration of Italianate theatre in the 1500s. Cultural contamination increased the popularity of the mixed genre of the pastorals and tragicomedies on the Continent and in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Shakespeare infused his plays with comic and tragic moments that encouraged the audience to confront personal truths through laughter and tears. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the roistering Bottom combined the zanni and Capitano into Shakespeare's unique English countrified Capitano.
