“Witty device”: the emblem and its appropriation in Shakespeare’s drama

Abstract

The renowned book of emblems written by Andrea Alciati, Emblematum liber (1531), the first of its kind to group together a wood engraving, a motto and an epigram, was widely emulated in the European courts throughout the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The first emblem book in English, A Choice of Emblemes and Other Devises, by Geoffrey Whitney, was published in 1586, and was extensively read in the learned circle of its time. In his work, Whitney displays 248 emblems made up of a motto, a wood engraving, and a poem, in English. Recycling ancient topoi in the manner of Alciati, Whitney’s emblems represent witty commonplaces, giving new life to ancient practices guided by Horace’s notion of ut pictura poesis and rhetorical-poetical precepts. Focusing on Whitney’s emblem book, this essay intends to analyze the structure and function of the emblem, highlighting the specificity of its iconic and verbal nature, and to discuss, from a selected corpus, some aspects of Shakespeare’s appropriation of the emblematic genre.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.2017n43a767.