John Florio and Shakespeare: Life and Language

Investigations into the link between Shakespeare and John Florio stretch back to the mid eighteenth century when, in his edition of the plays (1747), William Warburton suggested that “by Holofernes is designed a particular character, a pedant and schoolmaster of our author’s time, one John Florio, a teacher of the Italian tongue in London.” Since then, other modern critics have been haunted by a sort of “magnificent obsession” to prove a connection, both in a biographical and/or in a linguistic perspective, between these giants of Elizabethan culture. However, no solid facts have been put forward but only conjectures about a possible, at best probable, acquaintanceship. Failing to find historical dates and documents which link Florio’s and Shakespeare’s lives, the essay suggests a re-examination and reappraisal of their supposed reciprocal influence, especially as far as their dramatic and didactic dialogues and Shakespeare’s knowledge of Italian are concerned. The attempt is thus to combine a historical-pragmatic investigation into early modern dialogues with a historical framework which might account for “the Shakespeare and Florio connection”.