Winter’s Tale; the play within the play wherein Schedoni sees his own actions depicted just as Claudius does in Hamlet, as well as Schedoni murdering his brother and marrying his wife just as Claudius; the “aura of superstition and fear” that Schedoni and Spalatro experience while preparing to kill Ellena “is almost taken verbatim from Macbeth,” as Spalatro sees the ghost of the man he killed, just as Macbeth sees Banquo, and both men experience the delusional states of paranoia both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth experience during and after Duncan’s murder; Schedoni mimics Iago from Othello as he psychologically manipulates other characters, and his manipulations are the catalyst for the major conflicts in the plot. The characters themselves also appear to mimic the characteristics of Shakespear’s heroes, heroines and villains. Ellena has the beloved status of Juliet with the pride of Cordelia from King Lear; Vivaldi is the passionate lover like Romeo; and Father Schedoni, the most developed character in the novel, is a manipulator like Iago, tortured by his love for Ellena just as Othello is tortured by his love for Desdemona, faces the oncoming, inevitable consequences of his bloodshed just as Macbeth. The animalistic imagery used to describe Schedoni is also taken verbatim from the works of Shakespeare. He is described as a “serpent” mirroring language from Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Romeo and Juliet; he is described as a “tiger” mirroring language from Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Richard III; a “vulture” mirroring the language of King Lear, Macbeth, and Titus Andronicus; a “Basilisk” mirroring language in Richard III, The Winter’s Tale, and Cymbeline. Editions The Italian, Oneworld Classics, 2008 The Italian, Penguin Classics, 2001 Radcliffe, Ann and Jane Austen. Two Gothic Classics by Women [The Italian and Northanger Abbey], edited and introduced by Deborah D. Rogers, Signet Classics, 1995. The Italian, Oxford World's Classics, 2017 References External links 1797 novels Novels by Ann Radcliffe British horror novels English Gothic novels Romanticism Sentimental novels British thriller novels British romance novels Novels set in Italy Fiction set in 1758 Novels set in the 1750s Inquisition in fiction