Abstract
This article studies thirteen Italian libretti of music dramas that were staged with Handel's music in the first half of the XVIII century. The libretti texts were written by a range of authors such as N. F. Haym, A. Salvi, P. Rolli, A. Zeno, V. Grimani, A. Hill, G. Rossi, N. Minato, A. Piovene. The majority of stories are based on famous Italian and French literary pieces. The article looks at literary and linguistic aspects of libretti. The literary components are the problem of primary sources, plot features and their transformations, drama structure and texts form. The linguistic components are rare verb forms, syntactical and lexical features of libretti. Attention is paid to the sound organisation of the texts - euphonia. Examples are drawn of the usage of alliteration and assonance.
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