«Una bella lontananza a capriccio dell’artefice». Pastoral comedies and tragicomedies of the 1630s: La Rosella, Li duo baci and La Rosa.

Abstract

Through analysis of the settings of three comedies and tragicomedies of the 1630s, La Rosella, Li duo baci and La Rosa, this essay highlights the later developments of Giovan Battista Andreini's 'pastoral poetics'. The pastoral elements which the author manipulates throughout his theatrical production are here stylised, lacking the dynamic contribution that the genre offered in the Baroque age. What emerges is a previously unremarked trait of Andreini's dramaturgical writing, which gives  a singular metaphorical value to the environmental descriptions and translates the actor's performativity into rhetorical terms.