Resumen de Eclectism and Syncretism in Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh's Jocasta
George Gascoigne and Francis Kinwelmersh's Jocasta (printed 1573) does not merely adapt Lodovico Dolce's Giocasta. It also draws on a variety of texts, classical and vernacular, including common emblems on which the dumb shows are based, and Senecan themes and phrasing. Some elements that do not derive from Dolce might suggest that Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh also consulted at least one of the three Latin translations of Euripides' Phoenician Women, possibly Collinus'. Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh's borrowings were consistently made to conform their work to their intellectual leanings, their ideological outlook, and their artistic design. At the same time, the Euripidean themes that were brought into their play through Dolce and, it seems, some other version of Phoenician Women, may have sown the seeds of new ideas about the nature of tragedy.
