Download or read book Shakespeare Among the Courtesans written by Duncan Salkeld and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Courtesans - women who achieve wealth, status, or power through sexual transgression - have played both a central and contradictory role in literature: they have been admired, celebrated, feared, and vilified. This study of the courtesan in Renaissance English drama focuses not only on the moral ambivalence of these women, but with special attention to Anglo-Italian relations, illuminates little known aspects of their lives. It traces the courtesan from a wry comedic character in the plays of Terence and Plautus to its literary exhaustion in the seventeenth-century dramatic works of Dekker, Marston, Webster, Middleton, Shirley and Brome. The author focuses especially on the presentation of the courtesan in the sixteenth century - dramas by Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Lyly view the courtesan as a symbol of social disease and decay, transforming classical conventions into English prejudices. Renaissance Anglo-Italian cultural and sexual relations are also investigated through comparisons of travel narratives, original source materials, and analysis of Aretino's representations of celebrated Italian courtesans. Amid these fascinating tales of aspiration, desire and despair lingers the intriguing question of who was the 'dark lady' of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Download or read book Rethinking Theatrical Documents in Shakespeare s England written by Tiffany Stern and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Rethinking Theatrical Documents brings together fifteen major scholars to analyse and theorise the documents, lost and found, that produced a play in Shakespeare's England. Showing how the playhouse frantically generated paratexts, it explores a rich variety of entangled documents, some known and some unknown: from before the play (drafts, casting lists, actors' parts); during the play (prologues, epilogues, title-boards); and after the play (playbooks, commonplace snippets, ballads) – though 'before', 'during' and 'after' intertwine in fascinating ways. By using collective intervention to rethink both theatre history and book history, it provides new ways of understanding plays critically, interpretatively, editorially, practically and textually.

Download or read book Shakespeare s Strangers and English Law written by Paul Raffield and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-26 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through analysis of 5 plays by Shakespeare, Paul Raffield examines what it meant to be a 'stranger' to English law in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean period. The numbers of strangers increased dramatically in the late sixteenth century, as refugees fled religious persecution in continental Europe and sought sanctuary in Protestant England. In the context of this book, strangers are not only persons ethnically or racially different from their English counterparts, be they immigrants, refugees, or visitors. The term also includes those who transgress or are simply excluded by their status from established legal norms by virtue of their faith, sexuality, or mode of employment. Each chapter investigates a particular category of 'stranger'. Topics include the treatment of actors in late Elizabethan England and the punishment of 'counterfeits' (Measure for Measure); the standing of refugees under English law and the reception of these people by the indigenous population (The Comedy of Errors); the establishment of 'Troynovant' as an international trading centre on the banks of the Thames (Troilus and Cressida); the role of law and the state in determining the rights of citizens and aliens (The Merchant of Venice); and the disenfranchised, estranged position of the citizen in a dysfunctional society and an acephalous realm (King Lear). This is the third sole-authored book by Paul Raffield on the subject of Shakespeare and the Law. The others are Shakespeare's Imaginary Constitution: Late Elizabethan Politics and the Theatre of Law (2010) and The Art of Law in Shakespeare (2017), both published by Hart/Bloomsbury.

Download or read book Arden Shakespeare Complete Works written by William Shakespeare and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-03-10 with total page 1382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised edition of the Arden Shakespeare Complete Works includes the full text of Double Falsehood, which was published in the Arden Third series to critical acclaim in 2010. The play is an eighteenth century rewrite of Shakespeare's "lost" play Cardenio and as such is a fascinating testament to the original. A short introduction outlines its complex textual history and the arguments for including it within the Shakespeare canon. The Complete Works contains the texts of all Shakespeare's plays, poems and sonnets, edited by leading Shakespeare scholars for the renowned Arden series. A general introduction gives the reader an overall view of how and why Shakespeare has become such an influential cultural icon, and how perceptions of his work have changed in the intervening four centuries. The introduction summarises the known facts about the dramatist's life, his reading and use of sources, and the nature of theatrical performance during his lifetime. Brief introductions to each play, written specially for this volume by the Arden General Editors, discuss the date and contemporary context of the play, its position within Shakespeare's oeuvre, and its subsequent performance history. An extensive glossary explains vocabulary which may be unfamiliar to modern readers.

Download or read book Locating the Queen s Men 1583 1603 written by Holger Schott Syme and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-06 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Locating the Queen's Men presents new and groundbreaking essays on early modern England's most prominent acting company, from their establishment in 1583 into the 1590s. Offering a far more detailed critical engagement with the plays than is available elsewhere, this volume situates the company in the theatrical and economic context of their time. The essays gathered here focus on four different aspects: playing spaces, repertory, play-types, and performance style, beginning with essays devoted to touring conditions, performances in university towns, London inns and theatres, and the patronage system under Queen Elizabeth. Repertory studies, unique to this volume, consider the elements of the company's distinctive style, and how this style may have influenced, for example, Shakespeare's Henry V. Contributors explore two distinct genres, the morality and the history play, especially focussing on the use of stock characters and on male/female relationships. Revising standard accounts of late Elizabeth theatre history, this collection shows that the Queen's Men, often understood as the last rear-guard of the old theatre, were a vital force that enjoyed continued success in the provinces and in London, representative of the abiding appeal of an older, more ostentatiously theatrical form of drama.

Download or read book Laughing and Weeping in Early Modern Theatres written by Matthew Steggle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did Shakespeare's original audiences weep? Equally, while it seems obvious that they must have laughed at plays performed in early modern theatres, can we say anything about what their laughter sounded like, about when it occurred, and about how, culturally, it was interpreted? Related to both of these problems of audience behaviour is that of the stage representation of laughing, and weeping, both actions performed with astonishing frequency in early modern drama. Each action is associated with a complex set of non-verbal noises, gestures, and cultural overtones, and each is linked to audience behaviour through one of the axioms of Renaissance dramatic theory: that weeping and laughter on stage cause, respectively, weeping and laughter in the audience. This book is a study of laughter and weeping in English theatres, broadly defined, from around 1550 until their closure in 1642. It is concerned both with the representation of these actions on the stage, and with what can be reconstructed about the laughter and weeping of theatrical audiences themselves, arguing that both actions have a peculiar importance in defining the early modern theatrical experience.

Download or read book A New Companion to Renaissance Drama written by Arthur F. Kinney and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-04-20 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New Companion to Renaissance Drama provides an invaluable summary of past and present scholarship surrounding the most popular and influential literary form of its time. Original interpretations from leading scholars set the scene for important paths of future inquiry. A colorful, comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the material conditions of Renaissance plays, England's most important dramatic period Contributors are both established and emerging scholars, with many leading international figures in the discipline Offers a unique approach by organizing the chapters by cultural context, theatre history, genre studies, theoretical applications, and material studies Chapters address newest departures and future directions for Renaissance drama scholarship Arthur Kinney is a world-renowned figure in the field

Download or read book Playwright Space and Place in Early Modern Performance written by Mr Tim Fitzpatrick and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing Elizabethan and Jacobean playtexts for their spatial implications, this innovative study discloses the extent to which the resources and constraints of public playhouse buildings affected the construction of the fictional worlds of early modern plays. The study argues that playwrights were writing with foresight, inscribing the constraints and resources of the stages into their texts. It goes further, to posit that Shakespeare and his playwright-contemporaries adhered to a set of generic conventions, rather than specific local company practices, about how space and place were to be related in performance: the playwrights constituted thus an overarching virtual 'company' producing playtexts that shared features across the acting companies and playhouses. By clarifying a sixteenth- to seventeenth-century conception of theatrical place, Tim Fitzpatrick adds a new layer of meaning to our understanding of the plays. His approach adds a new dimension to these particular documents which–though many of them are considered of great literary worth–were not originally generated for any other reason than to be performed within a specific performance context. The fact that the playwrights were aware of the features of this performance tradition makes their texts a potential mine of performance information, and casts light back on the texts themselves: if some of their meanings are 'spatial', these will have been missed by purely literary tools of analysis.

Download or read book Playwright Space and Place in Early Modern Performance written by Tim Fitzpatrick and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-22 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing Elizabethan and Jacobean playtexts for their spatial implications, this innovative study discloses the extent to which the resources and constraints of public playhouse buildings affected the construction of the fictional worlds of early modern plays. The study argues that playwrights were writing with foresight, inscribing the constraints and resources of the stages into their texts. It goes further, to posit that Shakespeare and his playwright-contemporaries adhered to a set of generic conventions, rather than specific local company practices, about how space and place were to be related in performance: the playwrights constituted thus an overarching virtual 'company' producing playtexts that shared features across the acting companies and playhouses. By clarifying a sixteenth- to seventeenth-century conception of theatrical place, Tim Fitzpatrick adds a new layer of meaning to our understanding of the plays. His approach adds a new dimension to these particular documents which-though many of them are considered of great literary worth-were not originally generated for any other reason than to be performed within a specific performance context. The fact that the playwrights were aware of the features of this performance tradition makes their texts a potential mine of performance information, and casts light back on the texts themselves: if some of their meanings are 'spatial', these will have been missed by purely literary tools of analysis.

Download or read book Renaissance Drama in Action written by Martin White and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renaissance Drama in Action is a fascinating exploration of Renaissance theatre practice and staging. Covering questions of contemporary playhouse design, verse and language, staging and rehearsal practices, and acting styles, Martin White relates the characteristics of Renaissance theatre to the issues involved in staging the plays today. This refreshingly accessible volume: * examines the history of the plays on the English stage from the seventeenth century to the present day * explores questions arising from reconstructions, with particular reference to the new Globe Theatre * includes interviews with, and draws on the work and experience of modern theatre practitioners including Harriet Walter, Matthew Warchus, Trevor Nunn, Stephen Jeffreys, Adrian Noble and Helen Mirren * includes discussions of familiar plays such as The Duchess of Malfi and 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, as well as many lesser known play-texts Renaissance Drama in Action offers undergraduates and A-level students an invaluable guide to the characteristics of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and its relationship to contemporary theatre and staging.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of British Theatre written by Jane Milling and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-23 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance written by Pamela King and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of early drama has undergone a quiet revolution in the last four decades, radically altering critical approaches to form, genre, and canon. Drawing on disciplines from art history to musicology and reception studies, The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance reconsiders early "drama" as a mixed mode entertainment best studied not only alongside non-dramatic texts, but also other modes of performance. From performance before the playhouse to the afterlife of medieval drama in the contemporary avant-garde, this stunning collection of essays is divided into four sections: Northern European Playing before the Playhouse; Modes of Production and Reception; Reviewing the Anglophone Tradition; The Long Middle Ages Offering a much needed reassessment of what is generally understood as "English medieval drama", The Routledge Research Companion to Early Drama and Performance provides an invaluable resource for both students and scholars of medieval studies.

Download or read book The Routledge Research Companion to Shakespeare and Classical Literature written by Sean Keilen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this wide-ranging and ambitiously conceived Research Companion, contributors explore Shakespeare’s relationship to the classic in two broad senses. The essays analyze Shakespeare’s specific debts to classical works and weigh his classicism’s likeness and unlikeness to that of others in his time; they also evaluate the effects of that classical influence to assess the extent to which it is connected with whatever qualities still make Shakespeare, himself, a classic (arguably the classic) of modern world literature and drama. The first sense of the classic which the volume addresses is the classical culture of Latin and Greek reading, translation, and imitation. Education in the canon of pagan classics bound Shakespeare together with other writers in what was the dominant tradition of English and European poetry and drama, up through the nineteenth and even well into the twentieth century. Second—and no less central—is the idea of classics as such, that of books whose perceived value, exceeding that of most in their era, justifies their protection against historical and cultural change. The volume’s organizing insight is that as Shakespeare was made a classic in this second, antiquarian sense, his work’s reception has more and more come to resemble that of classics in the first sense—of ancient texts subject to labored critical study by masses of professional interpreters who are needed to mediate their meaning, simply because of the texts’ growing remoteness from ordinary life, language, and consciousness. The volume presents overviews and argumentative essays about the presence of Latin and Greek literature in Shakespeare’s writing. They coexist in the volume with thought pieces on the uses of the classical as a historical and pedagogical category, and with practical essays on the place of ancient classics in today’s Shakespearean classrooms.

Download or read book A Selective Bibliography of Shakespeare written by James G. McManaway and published by Associated University Presses. This book was released on 1978-07 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bibliography provides easy access to the most important Shakespeare studies in the past four decades. Brief annotations, a detailed table of contents, cross-references, and a complete index make this bibliography especially useful.

Download or read book The English Clown Tradition from the Middle Ages to Shakespeare written by Robert Hornback and published by DS Brewer. This book was released on 2013 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the late-medieval period through to the seventeenth century, English theatrical clowns carried a weighty cultural significance, only to have it stripped from them, sometimes violently, by the close of the Renaissance when the famed "license" of fooling was effectively revoked. This groundbreaking survey of clown traditions in the period looks both at their history, and reveals their hidden cultural contexts and legacies; it has far-reaching implications not only for our general understanding of English clown types, but also their considerable role in defining social, religious and racial boundaries. It begins with an exploration of previously un-noted early representations of blackness in medieval psalters, cycle plays, and Tudor interludes, arguing that they are emblematic of folly and ignorance rather than of evil. Subsequent chapters show how protestants at Cambridge and at court, during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward, patronised a clownish, iconoclastic Lord of Misrule; look at the Elizabethan puritan stage clown; and move on to a provocative reconsideration of the Fool in King Lear, drawing completely fresh conclusions. Finally, the epilogue points to the satirical clowning which took place surreptitiously in the Interregnum, and the (sometimes violent) end of "licensed" folly. Professor ROBERT HORNBACK teaches in the Departments of Literature and Theatre at Oglethorpe University.

Download or read book Performing Widowhood on the Early Modern English Stage written by Asuka Kimura and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-01-30 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The deaths of husbands radically changed women’s lives in the early modern period. While losing male protection, widows acquired rare opportunities for social and economic independence. Placed between death and life, female submissiveness and male audacity, chastity and sexual awareness, or tragedy and comedy, widows were highly problematic in early modern patriarchal society. They were also popular figures in the theatre, arousing both male desire and anxiety. Now how did Shakespeare and his contemporaries represent them on the stage? What kind of costume, props, and gestures were employed? What influence did actors, spectators, and play-space have? This book offers a fresh and incisive examination of the theatrical representation of widows by discussing the material conditions of the early modern stage. It is also the only comprehensive study of this topic covering all three phases of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline drama.

Download or read book The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature Volume 1 600 1660 written by George Watson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1974-08-29 with total page 1322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than fifty specialists have contributed to this new edition of volume 1 of The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. The design of the original work has established itself so firmly as a workable solution to the immense problems of analysis, articulation and coordination that it has been retained in all its essentials for the new edition. The task of the new contributors has been to revise and integrate the lists of 1940 and 1957, to add materials of the following decade, to correct and refine the bibliographical details already available, and to re-shape the whole according to a new series of conventions devised to give greater clarity and consistency to the entries.