Staging The Superstitions Of Early Modern Europe

Author : Andrew D. McCarthy
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2016-04-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317050674

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Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe by Andrew D. McCarthy Pdf

Engaging with fiction and history-and reading both genres as texts permeated with early modern anxieties, desires, and apprehensions-this collection scrutinizes the historical intersection of early modern European superstitions and English stage literature. Contributors analyze the cultural mechanisms that shape, preserve, and transmit beliefs. They investigate where superstitions come from and how they are sustained and communicated within early modern European society. It has been proposed by scholars that once enacted on stage and thus brought into contact with the literary-dramatic perspective, belief systems that had been preserved and reinforced by historical-literary texts underwent a drastic change. By highlighting the connection between historical-literary and literary-dramatic culture, this volume tests and explores the theory that performance of superstitions opened the way to disbelief.

Author : Andrew D. McCarthy,Verena Theile
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : English drama
ISBN : OCLC:1263596526

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Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe by Andrew D. McCarthy,Verena Theile Pdf

Author : Verena Theile,Andrew D. McCarthy
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : English drama
ISBN : OCLC:1014215165

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Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe by Verena Theile,Andrew D. McCarthy Pdf

Author : Andrew D. McCarthy
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2016-04-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317050681

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Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe by Andrew D. McCarthy Pdf

Engaging with fiction and history-and reading both genres as texts permeated with early modern anxieties, desires, and apprehensions-this collection scrutinizes the historical intersection of early modern European superstitions and English stage literature. Contributors analyze the cultural mechanisms that shape, preserve, and transmit beliefs. They investigate where superstitions come from and how they are sustained and communicated within early modern European society. It has been proposed by scholars that once enacted on stage and thus brought into contact with the literary-dramatic perspective, belief systems that had been preserved and reinforced by historical-literary texts underwent a drastic change. By highlighting the connection between historical-literary and literary-dramatic culture, this volume tests and explores the theory that performance of superstitions opened the way to disbelief.

Author : Lisa Hopkins,Helen Ostovich
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2016-05-13
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781317102755

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Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage by Lisa Hopkins,Helen Ostovich Pdf

Magical Transformations on the Early Modern Stage furthers the debate about the cultural work performed by representations of magic on the early modern English stage. It considers the ways in which performances of magic reflect and feed into a sense of national identity, both in the form of magic contests and in its recurrent linkage to national defence; the extent to which magic can trope other concerns, and what these might be; and how magic is staged and what the representational strategies and techniques might mean. The essays range widely over both canonical plays-Macbeth, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Doctor Faustus, Bartholomew Fair-and notably less canonical ones such as The Birth of Merlin, Fedele and Fortunio, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Devil is an Ass, The Late Lancashire Witches and The Witch of Edmonton, putting the two groups into dialogue with each other and also exploring ways in which they can be profitably related to contemporary cases or accusations of witchcraft. Attending to the representational strategies and self-conscious intertextuality of the plays as well as to their treatment of their subject matter, the essays reveal the plays they discuss as actively intervening in contemporary debates about witchcraft and magic in ways which themselves effect transformation rather than simply discussing it. At the heart of all the essays lies an interest in the transformative power of magic, but collectively they show that the idea of transformation applies not only to the objects or even to the subjects of magic, but that the plays themselves can be seen as working to bring about change in the ways that they challenge contemporary assumptions and stereotypes.

Author : Christina Gutierrez-Dennehy
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 231 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2021-09-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781000461961

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Kingship, Madness, and Masculinity on the Early Modern Stage by Christina Gutierrez-Dennehy Pdf

Kingship, Madness, and Masculinity examines representations of mad kings in early modern English theatrical texts and performance practices. Although there have been numerous volumes examining the medical and social dimensions of mental illness in the early modern period, and a few that have examined stage representations of such conditions, this volume is unique in its focus on the relationships between madness, kingship, and the anxiety of lost or fragile masculinity. The chapters uncover how, as the early modern understanding of mental illness refocused on human, rather than supernatural, causes, public stages became important arenas for playwrights, actors, and audiences to explore expressions of madness and to practice diagnoses. Throughout the volume, the authors engage with the field of disability studies to show how disability and mental health were portrayed on stage and what those representations reveal about the period and the people who lived in it. Altogether, the essays question what happens when theatrical expressions of madness are mapped onto the bodies of actors playing kings, and how the threat of diminished masculinity affects representations of power. This volume is the ideal resource for students and scholars interested in the history of kingship, gender, and politics in early modern drama.

Author : Katarzyna Kosior
Publisher : Springer
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2019-03-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9783030118488

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Becoming a Queen in Early Modern Europe by Katarzyna Kosior Pdf

Queens of Poland are conspicuously absent from the study of European queenship—an absence which, together with early modern Poland’s marginal place in the historiography, results in a picture of European royal culture that can only be lopsided and incomplete. Katarzyna Kosior cuts through persistent stereotypes of an East-West dichotomy and a culturally isolated early modern Poland to offer a groundbreaking comparative study of royal ceremony in Poland and France. The ceremonies of becoming a Jagiellonian or Valois queen, analysed in their larger European context, illuminate the connections that bound together monarchical Europe. These ceremonies are a gateway to a fuller understanding of European royal culture, demonstrating that it is impossible to make claims about European queenship without considering eastern Europe.

Author : Sandra Clark
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2018-05-31
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781472581822

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Shakespeare and Domestic Life by Sandra Clark Pdf

This dictionary explores the language of domestic life found in Shakespeare's work and seeks to demonstrate the meanings he attaches to it through his uses of it in particular contexts. "Domestic life" covers a range of topics: the language of the household, clothing, food, family relationships and duties; household practices, the architecture of the home, and all that conditions and governs the life of the home. The dictionary draws on recent cultural materialist research to provide in-depth definitions of the domestic language and life in Shakespeare's works, creating a richly rewarding and informative reference tool for upper level students and scholars.

Author : Robert Henke
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 815 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2016-12-05
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781351938327

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European Theatre Performance Practice, 1580-1750 by Robert Henke Pdf

This volume presents foundational and representative essays of the last half century on theatre performance practice during the period 1580 to 1750. The particular focus is on the nature of playing spaces, staging, acting and audience response in professional theatre and the selection of previously published research articles and book chapters includes significant works on topics such as Shakespearean staging, French and Spanish theatre audiences, the challenging aspects of the evolution of Italian renaissance acting practice, and the ’hidden’ dimensions of performance. The essays provide coherent transnational coverage as well as detailed treatments of their individual topics. Considerations of theatre practice in Italy, Spain and France, as well as England, place Shakespeare’s theatre in its European context to reveal surprising commonalities and salient differences in the performance practice of early modern Europe’s major professional theatres. This volume is an indispensable reference work for university libraries, lecturers, researchers and practitioners and offers a coherent overview of early modern comparative performance practice, and a deeper understanding of the field’s major topics and developments.

Author : V. Theile,L. Tredennick
Publisher : Springer
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2013-04-11
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137010490

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New Formalisms and Literary Theory by V. Theile,L. Tredennick Pdf

Bringing together scholars who have critically followed New Formalism's journey through time, space, and learning environment, this collection of essays both solidifies and consolidates New Formalism as a burgeoning field of literary criticism and explicates its potential as a varied but viable methodology of contemporary critical theory.

Author : Helen Parish,William G. Naphy
Publisher : Manchester University Press
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : History
ISBN : 071906158X

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Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe by Helen Parish,William G. Naphy Pdf

"Superstition" is one of the most fought over terms in the history of early modern popular culture, especially religious culture, and is also one of the most difficult to define. This volume offers a novel approach to the issue, based upon national and regional studies, and examinations of attitudes to prophets, ghosts, saints, and demonology, alongside an analysis of Catholic responses to the Reformation and the apparent presence of "superstition" in the reformed churches. It challenges the assumptions that Catholic piety was innately superstitious, while Protestantism was rational, and suggests that the early modern concept of "superstition" needs more careful treatment by historians.

Author : Darren Oldridge
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2016-03-31
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317278207

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The Supernatural in Tudor and Stuart England by Darren Oldridge Pdf

The Supernatural in Tudor and Stuart England reflects upon the boundaries between the natural and the otherworldly in early modern England as they were understood by the people of the time. The book places supernatural beliefs and events in the context of the English Reformation to show how early modern people reacted to the world of unseen spirits and magical influences. It sets out the conceptual foundations of early modern encounters with the supernatural, and shows how occult beliefs penetrated almost every aspect of life. Darren Oldridge considers many of the spiritual forces that pervaded early modern England: an immanent God who sometimes expressed Himself through ‘signs and wonders’ and the various lesser inhabitants of the world of spirits including ghosts, goblins, demons and angels. He explores human attempts to comprehend, harness or accommodate these powers through magic and witchcraft, and the role of the supernatural in early modern science. This book presents a concise and accessible up-to-date synthesis of the scholarship of the supernatural in Tudor and Stuart England. It will be essential reading for students of early modern England, religion, witchcraft and the supernatural.

Author : Musa Gurnis
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2018-07-31
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9780812295184

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Mixed Faith and Shared Feeling by Musa Gurnis Pdf

Mixed Faith and Shared Feeling explores the mutually generative relationship between post-Reformation religious life and London's commercial theaters. It explores the dynamic exchange between the imaginatively transformative capacities of shared theatrical experience, with the particular ideological baggage that individual playgoers bring into the theater. While early modern English drama was shaped by the polyvocal, confessional scene in which it was embedded, Musa Gurnis contends that theater does not simply reflect culture but shapes it. According to Gurnis, shared theatrical experience allowed mixed-faith audiences to vicariously occupy alternative emotional and cognitive perspectives across the confessional spectrum. In looking at individual plays, such as Thomas Middleton's A Game of Chess and Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Gurnis shows how theatrical process can restructure playgoers' experiences of confessional material and interrupt dominant habits of religious thought. She refutes any assumption that audiences consisted of conforming Church of England Protestants by tracking the complex and changing religious lives of seventy known playgoers. Arguing against work that seeks to draw fixed lines of religious affiliation around individual playwrights or companies, she highlights the common practice of cross-confessional collaboration among playhouse colleagues. Mixed Faith and Shared Feeling demonstrates how post-Reformation representational practices actively reshaped the ways ideologically diverse Londoners accessed the mixture of religious life across the spectrum of beliefs.

Author : Sophie Duncan
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 470 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2019-01-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781351967600

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Shakespeare’s Props by Sophie Duncan Pdf

Cognitive approaches to drama have enriched our understanding of Early Modern playtexts, acting and spectatorship. This monograph is the first full-length study of Shakespeare’s props and their cognitive impact. Shakespeare’s most iconic props have become transhistorical, transnational metonyms for their plays: a strawberry-spotted handkerchief instantly recalls Othello; a skull Hamlet. One reason for stage properties’ neglect by cognitive theorists may be the longstanding tendency to conceptualise props as detachable body parts: instead, this monograph argues for props as detachable parts of the mind. Through props, Shakespeare’s characters offload, reveal and intervene in each other’s cognition, illuminating and extending their affect. Shakespeare’s props are neither static icons nor substitutes for the body, but volatile, malleable, and dangerously exposed extensions of his characters’ minds. Recognising them as such offers new readings of the plays, from the way memory becomes a weapon in Hamlet’s Elsinore, to the pleasures and perils of Early Modern gift culture in Othello. The monograph illuminates Shakespeare’s exploration of extended cognition, recollection and remembrance at a time when the growth of printing was forcing Renaissance culture to rethink the relationship between memory and the object. Readings in Shakespearean stage history reveal how props both carry audience affect and reveal cultural priorities: some accrue cultural memories, while others decay and are forgotten as detritus of the stage.

Author : William E. Engel,Grant Williams
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2022-05-05
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783030884901

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The Shakespearean Death Arts by William E. Engel,Grant Williams Pdf

This is the first book to view Shakespeare’s plays from the prospect of the premodern death arts, not only the ars moriendi tradition but also the plurality of cultural expressions of memento mori, funeral rituals, commemorative activities, and rhetorical techniques and strategies fundamental to the performance of the work of dying, death, and the dead. The volume is divided into two sections: first, critically nuanced examinations of Shakespeare’s corpus and then, second, of Hamlet exclusively as the ultimate proving ground of the death arts in practice. This book revitalizes discussion around key and enduring themes of mortality by reframing Shakespeare’s plays within a newly conceptualized historical category that posits a cultural divide—at once epistemological and phenomenological—between premodernity and the Enlightenment.