"Shakespeare and Crisis: One hundred years of Italian narratives explores how Shakespeare entered the Italian socio-political and cultural panorama between his third and fourth centenary, at times manifestly perceived as critical. It asks which complex mythopoietic processes constructed narratives that contributed to shaping regimes of reading in response to those times of crisis. Crises of national identity during the Great War and the Fascist regime, crises of history in the 1970s, and crises of representation in the second half of the twentieth century extending into the new millennium constitute the three main areas of a discussion that aims at probing into the role of literature at times of crisis. Filling a gap in the field of European Shakespeare, the volume situates itself at the junction of European Shakespeare studies and studies of Shakespeare and Italy. It addresses essential questions on the position of literature in society, offering at different levels new insights for scholars, students, as well as general readers"--