640 linda l. carroll
[Peasant Love] have names recalling those of ariosto’s Lena and ghetta
of ruzante’s Piovana [The Girl from Piove]. in a telling development, how-
ever, the social values expressed in the plot lines of goldoni’s works are
considerably more daring than even those of ruzante. in Uccellatori, for
example, a titled noblewoman not only becomes enamoured of a peasant
but is even disposed to marry him; it is he who rejects her.
in these first intermezzi (e.g., La birba, The Con; 1734) goldoni initi-
ated his reform of the theater, which furthered the interpenetration of
the street and the stage that had developed over the preceding century
and the growing preference for authored over improvised works.40 his
reform took theater from the vulgar slapstick improvisations of Com-
media dell’arte and the excessive and even gruesome emotionalism of
melodrama and tragedy to a meditation upon the real world. in particular,
goldoni sought to penetrate the veil of rhetoric and dissimulation to dis-
cern and communicate in plain language the truth of everyday events and
actions. his emphasis on real-life language manifested itself especially in
his many plays in the Venetian language.
summarizing his theories for the 1750 edition of his plays, goldoni
termed his reform “Mondo e teatro” [World and theater].41 some of the
aspects of daily life informing his plays are the frantic search for income,
with the bourgeoisie the only class still involved in what remained of
Venice’s shrinking commercial economy; the growing economic power
of women deriving from their dowries and money-making capacity and
the extreme limits on reproduction that could leave only daughters sole
heirs; the increasing dependence of the upper class on the lower class. the
important influence of international culture is also reflected in goldoni’s
privileging of French and especially of british rationalist culture, continu-
ing the fruitful tradition of intellectual and cultural exchange that merits
further attention from scholars.
as Franco Fido has noted, Venice provided the perfect setting for gold-
oni’s reform with its unique topography putting members of all classes
in close proximity to one another, a long literary and official use of the
Venetian language, and an emphasis on the spoken word and dialogue
appearing even in gasparo gozzi’s newspapers.42 the merging of theater
40 Pullini, “il teatro fra polemica e costume,” p. 279; Franco Fido, “Carlo goldoni,” in
SCV 5.1, p. 312.
41 see especially Ortolani, “appunti”; Mario baratto, “goldoni,” in Tre studi sul teatro
(Vicenza, 1964), pp. 157–227, esp. pp. 192–93.
42 Fido, “Carlo goldoni,” in SCV 5.1, pp. 309–10.