The Aesthetics of Spectacle in Early Modern Drama and Modern Cinema

The Aesthetics of Spectacle in Early Modern Drama and Modern Cinema PDF Author: J. Sager
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137332409
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
Examining the work of the Elizabethan playwright, Robert Greene, this book argues that Greene's plays are innovative in their use of spectacle. Its most striking feature is the use of the one-to-one analogies between Greene's drama and modern cinema, in order to explore the plays' stage effects.

Materializing the East in Early Modern English Drama

Materializing the East in Early Modern English Drama PDF Author: Murat Ögütcü
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350300462
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Book Description
Despite the popularity of plays about the East, the representation of the East in early modern drama has been either overlooked, marginalized as footnotes or generalized into stereotypes. Materializing the East in Early Modern English Drama focuses on the multi-layered, often conflicting and changing perceptions of the East and how dramatic works made use of their respective theatrical space to represent the concept of the East in drama. This volume re-examines the (mis)representation of the East on the early modern English outdoor and indoor stage and broadens our understanding of early modern theatrical productions beyond Shakespeare and the European continent. It traces the origin of conventional depictions of the East to university dramas and explores how they influenced the commercial stage. Chapters uncover how conflicting representations of the East were communicated on stage through the material aspects of stage architecture, costumes and performance effects. The collection emphasizes these material aspects of dramatic performances and showcases neglected plays, including George Salterne's Tomumbeius, Robert Greene's The Historie of Orlando Furioso and Joseph Simons' Leo the Armenian, and puts them in conversation with William Shakespeare's The Tempest and John Fletcher's The Island Princess.

Aerial Environments on the Early Modern Stage

Aerial Environments on the Early Modern Stage PDF Author: Chloe Kathleen Preedy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192655094
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
During the early days of the professional English theatre, dramatists including Dekker, Greene, Heywood, Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, and Shakespeare wrote for playhouses that, though enclosed by surrounding walls, remained open to the ambient air and the sky above. The drama written for performance at these open-air venues drew attention to and reflected on its own relationship to the space of the air. At a time when theories of the imagination emphasized dramatic performance's reliance upon and implication in the air from and through which its staged fictions were presented and received, plays written for performance at open-air venues frequently draw attention to the nature and significance of that elemental relationship. Aerial Environments on the Early Modern Stage considers the various ways in which the air is brought into presence within early modern drama, analyzing more than a hundred works that were performed at the London open-air playhouses between 1576 and 1609, with reference to theatrical atmospheres and aerial encounters. It explores how various theatrical effects and staging strategies foregrounded early modern drama's relationship to, and impact on, the actual playhouse air. In considering open-air drama's pervasive and ongoing attention to aerial imagery, actions, and representational strategies, the book suggest that playwrights and their companies developed a dramaturgical awareness that extended from the earth to encompass and make explicit the space of air.

Playing and Playgoing in Early Modern England

Playing and Playgoing in Early Modern England PDF Author: Simon Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108489052
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 307

Book Description
Offers a new, interdisciplinary account of early modern drama through the lens of playing and playgoing.

Early Modern Media Ecology

Early Modern Media Ecology PDF Author: Peter W. Marx
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009298135
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
The early modern world was as enigmatic as it was dynamic. New epistemologies and technologies, open controversies about the world and afterworld, encounters with various cultures, and numerous forms of entertainment wetted the appetite for ever-new sensational experiences, an emerging visual language, and different social constellations. Thaumaturgy, the art of making wonder, was the historical term under which many of these forms were subsumed: encompassing everything from magic lanterns to puppets to fireworks, and deliberately mingling the spheres of commercial entertainment, art, and religion. But thaumaturgy was not just an idle pastime but a vital field of cultural and intercultural negotiation. This Element introduces this field and suggests a new form of historiography-media ecology-which focuses on connections, formations, and transformations and takes a global perspective.

Early Modern Others

Early Modern Others PDF Author: Peter C. Herman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000967573
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Book Description
Early Modern Others highlights instances of challenges to misogyny, racism, atheism, and antisemitism in the early modern period. Through deeply historicizing early modern literature and looking at its political and social contexts, Peter C. Herman explores how early modern authors challenged the biases and prejudices of their age. By examining the works of Thomas More, William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger amongst others, Herman reveals that for every “-ism” in early modern English culture there was an “anti-ism” pushing back against it. The book investigates “others” in early modern literature through indigenous communities, women, religion, people of color, and class. This innovative book shows that the early modern period was as complicated and as contradictory as the world today. It will offer valuable insight for anyone studying early modern literature and culture, as well as social justice and intersectionality.

Physical Disability in British Romantic Literature

Physical Disability in British Romantic Literature PDF Author: Essaka Joshua
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108836704
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Book Description
This book provides new period-appropriate concepts for understanding Romantic-era physical disability through function and aesthetics.

Weathering Shakespeare

Weathering Shakespeare PDF Author: Evelyn O'Malley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350078077
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Book Description
From The Pastoral Players' 1884 performance of As You Like It to contemporary site-specific productions activist interventions, there is a rich history of open air performances of Shakespeare's plays beyond their early modern origins. Weathering Shakespeare reveals how new insights from the environmental humanities can transform our understanding of this popular performance practice. Drawing on audience accounts of outdoor productions of those plays most commonly chosen for open air performance – including A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest – the book examines how performers and audiences alike have reacted to unpredictable natural environments.

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Music PDF Author: Christopher R. Wilson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190945141
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 1289

Book Description
"This compendium reflects the latest international research into the many and various uses of music in relation to Shakespeare's plays and poems, the contributors' lines of enquiry extending from the Bard's own time to the present day. The coverage is global in its scope, and includes studies of Shakespeare-related music in countries as diverse as China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, and the Soviet Union, as well as the more familiar Anglophone musical and theatrical traditions of the UK and USA. The range of genres surveyed by the book's team of distinguished authors embraces music for theatre, opera, ballet, musicals, the concert hall, and film, in addition to Shakespeare's ongoing afterlives in folk music, jazz, and popular music. The authors take a range of diverse approaches: some investigate the evidence for performative practices in the Early Modern and later eras, while others offer detailed analyses of representative case studies, situating these firmly in their cultural contexts, or reflecting on the political and sociological ramifications of the music. As a whole, the volume provides a wide-ranging compendium of cutting-edge scholarship engaging with an extraordinarily rich body of music without parallel in the history of the global arts"--

A New Companion to Renaissance Drama

A New Companion to Renaissance Drama PDF Author: Arthur F. Kinney
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118824008
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 920

Book Description
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