Fausto Cercignani

Fausto Cercignani
Fausto Cercignani (2011) - The essence of my optimism is constructive pessimism.
Born	(1941-03-21) March 21, 1941 (age 75) Cagliari, Italy
Occupation	Scholar, essayist and poet
Nationality	Italian
Alma mater	University of Milan
Notable works	Shakespeare’s Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation
Notable awards	Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft und Kunst I. Klasse (Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class)

Fausto Cercignani (Italian pronunciation: [ˈfausto tʃertʃiɲˈɲani]; born March 21, 1941) is an Italian scholar, essayist and poet.

Born to Tuscan parents, Fausto Cercignani studied in Milan, where he graduated in foreign languages and literatures with a dissertation dealing with English at Shakespeare’s time. His career as a university professor was at first characterized by philological investigations in the fields of English studies and Germanic studies. In 1983, after teaching at the Universities of Bergamo (1971-1974), Parma (1974-1975), and Pisa (1975-1983), he returned to Milan and carried on his activity at the University of Milan, where he intensified his researches on German literature, a field that he had been cultivating for years.

Cercignani was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class in 1996.

Cercignani’s philological interests have been mainly directed towards the history of the English language, with especial regard to the Elizabethan period. His articles on English pronunciation at Shakespeare’s time (published in “Studia Neophilologica”, “English Studies” and other specialized journals) anticipate his major work Shakespeare's Works and Elizabethan Pronunciation (Oxford, 1981), which has been cited as «the best work available» on the subject.

As «the foremost authority» on Elizabethan pronunciation, Cercignani is often cited on puns, rhymes, and spellings in the more recent editions of Shakespeare’s works, in most reference works on Shakespeare, and in various publications dealing with linguistic and literary questions from a historical point of view.