Shakespeares Ruins and Myth of Rome

Rome was tantamount to its ruins, a dismembered body, to the eyes of those Italians and foreigners who visited the city in the years prior to or encompassing the lengthy span of the Renaissance. Drawing on the double movement of archaeological exploration and creative reconstruction entailed in the humanist endeavour to resurrect the past, ruins are seen as taking precedence over myth, in Shakespeares Rome. They are assigned the role of a heuristic model, and discovered in all their epistemic relevance in Shakespeares dramatic vision of history and his negotiation of modernity. This is the first book of its kind to address Shakespeares relationship with Romes authoritative myth, archaeologically, by taking as a point of departure a chronological reversal, namely the vision of the eternal city as a ruinous scenario and hence the ways in which such a layered, silent, and aporetic scenario allows for an archaeo-anatomical approach to Shakespeares Roman works.