Pastoral Askew and Aslant: Ruzzante’s Historico-Theatrical Consciousness

Abstract

Acting as an in-depth introduction of Ruzzante, this chapter illustrates the performer’s awareness of the ways in which the Venice–Padua relationship of the early sixteenth century corresponded to the aesthetic and literary might of the pastoral genre; indeed, how the latter contributed to the infrastructure of a class identity that would, in turn, contribute to the continuing domination of the rural peasantry by the oligarchic Venetian upper classes. Additionally, folded into the multiverse of Pastoral (a multilingual, self-aware theatrical space housing competing worldviews) Daddario sees a philosophical outlook that anticipates and modifies, avant la lettre, the Leibnizian cosmogony of compossibles that will eventually become a hallmark of baroque thinking. Ruzzante’s Pastoral, treated in this way, transforms into a baroque pastoral.