Writers and readers in early modern Italianate verse narratives

Abstract

The article considers some examples from the often overlooked genre of Elizabethan verse translations of Italian novellas, concentrating in particular on the poems where the flow of the narration is interrupted by interpolated speeches, namely letters. I consider how epistolary correspondence in these stories often brings about violent outcomes, how the rhetoric of letters can complicate the reader’s interpretation and how the poets describe the material actions of writing and reading. Paratextual epistolary material is also analysed to determine the authors’ purpose.