Chivalric Poetry between Singing and Printing in Early Modern Italy
Luca Degl’Innocenti
Between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, chivalric romances were much loved in Italy, both popular learned contexts, one of bestselling genres nascent printed book trade. Although traditional blockbusters brand-new poems alike typically refer to oral performance a poet-singer, literary scholars tend evaluate those references as part rhetorical strategy fictive orality, cliches derived from performing practice supposedly confined earlier periods. Nevertheless, upon closer inspection, many authors texts prove be linked with real performances. Several poems, particular, surely composed, sung, even improvised by street singers, who also played very active role printing selling them. The paper aims survey most relevant evidence, thus reassessing importance orality fostering disseminating prominent Renaissance Italy
Journal of Early Modern Studies