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Interfictional Identities: Transformation And Dissimulation In The Early Modern Period, Yael Nezer Lavender-Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Interfictional Identities develops the concept of interfictional transformations. In these transformations, characters in early modern texts adopt new identities rooted in previous literature. Specifically, Interfictional Identities explores how four early modern moments of interfictional transformation—of Nick Bottom in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of Pyrocles in Sidney’s New Arcadia, of Uriel da Costa in A Specimen of Human Life, and of Don Quixote in Cervantes’ novel—produce both literary and literal hybridity. One wonders why, in these works, writers and playwrights such as Shakespeare, Sidney, Da Costa, and Cervantes favor interfictional transformations over mere allusions to classical literature, …