Gregorio Correr, James Calfhill, and the Early Elizabethan Affordances of Senecan Tragedy. (March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Perry, Curtis
• Is Part Of: Translation and literature. Volume 29:Part 1(2020)
• Page Start: 117
• Page End: 135
• Publication Date: 2020-03
• Subjects: Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger -- neo-Senecan -- Gregorio Correr -- Corraro -- James Calfhill -- Procne -- Progne; Translating and interpreting -- Periodicals; Literature -- Translations into English -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; 418.02
• DOI: 10.3366/tal.2020.0412
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0968-1361

Abstract

Abstract : This essay re-examines the relationship between James Calfhill's lost play Progne, which was performed before Queen Elizabeth at Oxford University in 1566, and Gregorio Correr's (or Corraro's) fifteenth-century neo-Senecan tragedy Procne . It argues that Calfhill likely based his play closely upon Correr's, which had been printed by Paulo Manuzio for the Academia Venetiana in 1558. In addition to considering how and why a play based on Correr's Procne might have been chosen for performance before Elizabeth at Oxford, the essay argues that the possible existence of such a play should prompt reconsideration of the affordances of early Elizabethan Senecan tragedy more generally. Correr's play, it is proposed, is an exceptionally sophisticated study of Senecan characterization, and locating a play based closely upon it within the context of early Elizabethan Senecan imitation casts new light on the question of how Senecan tragedy was taken up in England.