“Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak”: Female Agency from Cinthio to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

Over the centuries, Shakespeare’s sources have been the focus of great scholarly attention, but since the turn of the millennium this research field has been undergoing a significant paradigm shift, which has resulted in the reconceptualisation of source studies tout court. The recently rekindled debate within Shakespeare source studies (Maguire and Smith 2015; Belsey 2015; Drakakis 2021), in particular, has led to overcome the traditional idea of ‘source’ and the implications of ‘linearity’ and ‘authority’ that it brings along in favour of broader concepts of ‘appropriation’, ‘reuse’, or ‘resource’, which build on well-established ideas of ‘interdiscursivity’ and ‘intertextuality’ (Genette 1997; Miola 2004). Positioning itself within this critical frame, the chapter sets out to discuss the relationship between Cinthio’s works on the wronged Epitia and Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, whose plot they anticipate. Specifically, by analysing selected passages where both Cinthio’s Epitia and Shakespeare’s Isabella give proof of their rhetorical skills, my analysis will focus on the remarkably active roles which the two writers attributed to these characters. In so doing, I will be able to explore the resemblances linking Measure to its Italian an-tecedents, and to shed light on the convergence of Cinthio and Shakespeare towards similar forms of fe-male agency.