Dr. Camilla Caporicci Publishes “The Dark Lady”
Umbra Academic Assistant and Writing Center Coordinator Dr. Camilla Caporicci has published her first book, The Dark Lady, based on her doctoral thesis of the same name.
Published (perhaps without the author’s permission) in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, some of the most intriguing poems ever written, have always proved complex to investigate, and continue indeed to be highly problematic. In this work, through a rich and varied exploration of the Italian, French and English love sonnet tradition, Dr. Caporicci traced both the evolution of the genre and the close interaction between lyric poetry and philosophy. She arrived at a proposed review of the Shakespearean sonnet sequence, in terms of an abandonment of the sixteenth-century lyric tradition, and the overcoming of both the rhetorical character of Petrarchan poetry and its philosophical foundation.
Dr. Caporicci’s ground-breaking reading of the text highlights what she believes to be the most innovative element of this work: the figure of the Dark Lady. This mysterious and unconventional figure, to which critics have usually not paid due attention, is indeed proven to be the heart of a deep reflection on the philosophical and ontological truth of human nature, and consequently on the art that is called to express this truth.
An Italian-language copy of The Dark Lady is available in the Umbra library. Auguri dottoressa!