Autolycus's virtuosic performance, self-generated in ways that befit his name, bears comparison with the exuberant auto-poesis in Il Parlamento and the other "hunger" plays of Ruzante, which I have argued tend toward
monology. Edgar's "Poor Torn" (and the adjective deserves more weight than it is generally given) is deployed in a bloody and tragic world (in this sense consonant with Bilora), but despite the grim denouement of Shakespeare's play, his fictional "productions;' in the double sense, are more socially efficacious than those of Ruzante, especially if we think of cognitive and emotional transformation rather than direct political action.