Edith Hall (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780197266519
- eISBN:
- 9780191884238
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266519.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This volume of essays arose from a conference which marked the 80th birthday of prizewinning British poet Tony Harrison on 30 April 2017 and with his agreement constitutes his ‘official’ Festschrift. ...
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This volume of essays arose from a conference which marked the 80th birthday of prizewinning British poet Tony Harrison on 30 April 2017 and with his agreement constitutes his ‘official’ Festschrift. The contributors include practising poets, playwrights, specialists in Classics, Theatre, Translation Studies, English and World Literature, and professionals in media (radio, newspapers, TV and film) where Harrison’s extensive work has been least researched. The aim of the volume is to open up new approaches to the understanding of the work of one of our most important poets.
Although it is indeed intended to provide the substantial and sufficiently comprehensive contribution to Harrison scholarship that his official eight-decades-alive merit, and the Editor’s Introduction to the volume is sensitive to the needs of the reader in terms of bibliographical signposts, the four sections focus primarily on areas that have been hitherto little explored: (1) his more recent poems; (2) the continuation of his relationship with ancient theatre after the landmark Oresteia and Trackers of the 1980–1990 decade, his evolving dramatic relationship with Euripides, and with French authors (Hugo, Molière, Racine); (3) the international angle. This entails both the profound contribution made to his work by his periods of residence abroad, in Africa, North America, Moscow and Prague, and his popularity in French and Italian translation (both European translators have agreed to speak); (4) his extensive body of poems (about which almost nothing has been published) written specifically for delivery in the media of film, television and radio.Less
This volume of essays arose from a conference which marked the 80th birthday of prizewinning British poet Tony Harrison on 30 April 2017 and with his agreement constitutes his ‘official’ Festschrift. The contributors include practising poets, playwrights, specialists in Classics, Theatre, Translation Studies, English and World Literature, and professionals in media (radio, newspapers, TV and film) where Harrison’s extensive work has been least researched. The aim of the volume is to open up new approaches to the understanding of the work of one of our most important poets.
Although it is indeed intended to provide the substantial and sufficiently comprehensive contribution to Harrison scholarship that his official eight-decades-alive merit, and the Editor’s Introduction to the volume is sensitive to the needs of the reader in terms of bibliographical signposts, the four sections focus primarily on areas that have been hitherto little explored: (1) his more recent poems; (2) the continuation of his relationship with ancient theatre after the landmark Oresteia and Trackers of the 1980–1990 decade, his evolving dramatic relationship with Euripides, and with French authors (Hugo, Molière, Racine); (3) the international angle. This entails both the profound contribution made to his work by his periods of residence abroad, in Africa, North America, Moscow and Prague, and his popularity in French and Italian translation (both European translators have agreed to speak); (4) his extensive body of poems (about which almost nothing has been published) written specifically for delivery in the media of film, television and radio.
Doyeeta Majumder
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781786941688
- eISBN:
- 9781789623260
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781786941688.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the ...
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This book examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the contemporary English stage. It will attempt to trace an evolution of the poetics of English and Scottish political drama through the early, middle, and late decades of the sixteenth-century in conjunction with developments in the political thought of the century, linking theatre and politics through the representations of the problematic figure of the usurper or, in Machiavellian terms, the ‘New Prince’. While the early Tudor morality plays are concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant, the later historical and tragic drama of the century foregrounds the figure of the illegitimate monarch who is a tyrant by default. On the one hand the sudden proliferation of usurpation plots in Elizabethan drama and the transition from the legitimate tyrant to the usurper tyrant is linked to the dramaturgical shift from the allegorical morality play tradition to later history plays and tragedies, and on the other it is reflective of a poetic turn in political thought which impelled political writers to conceive of the state and sovereignty as a product of human ‘poiesis’, independent of transcendental legitimization. The poetics of political drama and the emergence of the idea of ‘poiesis’ in the political context merge in the figure of the nuove principe: the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtu’ and through an act of law-making violence.Less
This book examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the contemporary English stage. It will attempt to trace an evolution of the poetics of English and Scottish political drama through the early, middle, and late decades of the sixteenth-century in conjunction with developments in the political thought of the century, linking theatre and politics through the representations of the problematic figure of the usurper or, in Machiavellian terms, the ‘New Prince’. While the early Tudor morality plays are concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant, the later historical and tragic drama of the century foregrounds the figure of the illegitimate monarch who is a tyrant by default. On the one hand the sudden proliferation of usurpation plots in Elizabethan drama and the transition from the legitimate tyrant to the usurper tyrant is linked to the dramaturgical shift from the allegorical morality play tradition to later history plays and tragedies, and on the other it is reflective of a poetic turn in political thought which impelled political writers to conceive of the state and sovereignty as a product of human ‘poiesis’, independent of transcendental legitimization. The poetics of political drama and the emergence of the idea of ‘poiesis’ in the political context merge in the figure of the nuove principe: the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtu’ and through an act of law-making violence.
Susannah Crowder
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526106407
- eISBN:
- 9781526141989
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526106407.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
Performing women takes on a key problem in the history of drama: the “exceptional” staging of the life of Catherine of Siena by a female actor and a female patron in 1468 Metz. These two creators ...
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Performing women takes on a key problem in the history of drama: the “exceptional” staging of the life of Catherine of Siena by a female actor and a female patron in 1468 Metz. These two creators have remained anonymous, despite the perceived rarity of this familiar episode; this study of their lives and performances brings the elusive figure of the female performer to center stage, however. Beginning with the Catherine of Siena play and broadening outward, Performing women integrates new approaches to drama, gender, and patronage with a performance methodology to trace connections among the activities of the actor, the patron, their female family members, and peers. It shows that the women of fifteenth-century Metz enacted varied kinds of performance that included and extended beyond the theater: decades before the 1468 play, for example, Joan of Arc returned from the grave in the form of a young woman named Claude, who was acknowledged formally in a series of civic ceremonies. This in-depth investigation of the full spectrum of evidence for female performance – drama, liturgy, impersonation, devotional practice, and documentary culture – both creates a unique portrait of the lives of individual women and reveals a framework of ubiquitous female performance. Performing women offers a new paradigm: women forming the core of public culture. Networks of gendered performance offered roles of expansive range and depth to the women of Metz, and positioned them as vital and integral contributors to the fabric of urban life.Less
Performing women takes on a key problem in the history of drama: the “exceptional” staging of the life of Catherine of Siena by a female actor and a female patron in 1468 Metz. These two creators have remained anonymous, despite the perceived rarity of this familiar episode; this study of their lives and performances brings the elusive figure of the female performer to center stage, however. Beginning with the Catherine of Siena play and broadening outward, Performing women integrates new approaches to drama, gender, and patronage with a performance methodology to trace connections among the activities of the actor, the patron, their female family members, and peers. It shows that the women of fifteenth-century Metz enacted varied kinds of performance that included and extended beyond the theater: decades before the 1468 play, for example, Joan of Arc returned from the grave in the form of a young woman named Claude, who was acknowledged formally in a series of civic ceremonies. This in-depth investigation of the full spectrum of evidence for female performance – drama, liturgy, impersonation, devotional practice, and documentary culture – both creates a unique portrait of the lives of individual women and reveals a framework of ubiquitous female performance. Performing women offers a new paradigm: women forming the core of public culture. Networks of gendered performance offered roles of expansive range and depth to the women of Metz, and positioned them as vital and integral contributors to the fabric of urban life.
Rachel Willie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719087639
- eISBN:
- 9781526104052
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719087639.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Staging the Revolution offers a reassessment of drama that was produced during the commonwealth and the first decade of the Restoration. It complements the focus of recent studies, which have ...
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Staging the Revolution offers a reassessment of drama that was produced during the commonwealth and the first decade of the Restoration. It complements the focus of recent studies, which have addressed textual exchange and royalist and republican discourse. Not all parliamentarians were opposed to the theatre, and not all theatre was illegal under the commonwealth regimes. Equally, not all theatrical experience was royalist in focus. Staging the Revolution builds upon these findings to examine ways in which drama negotiated the political moment to explore the way in which drama was appropriated as a means of responding to the civil wars and reinventing the recent past and how drama was also reinvented as a consequence of theatre closure. The often cited notion that 1660 marked the return to monarchical government and the rebirth of many cultural practices that were banned under an austere, Puritan, regime was a product of the 1650s and 1660s and it was fostered in some of the dramatic output of the period. The very presence of these dramas and their textual transmission challenges the notion that all holiday pastimes were forbidden. Covering some of the work of John Dryden and William Davenant as well as lesser-known, anonymous and non-canonical writers, the book examines contemporary dramatic responses to the civil war period to show that, far from marking a new beginning, the Restoration is focused upon the previous thirty years.Less
Staging the Revolution offers a reassessment of drama that was produced during the commonwealth and the first decade of the Restoration. It complements the focus of recent studies, which have addressed textual exchange and royalist and republican discourse. Not all parliamentarians were opposed to the theatre, and not all theatre was illegal under the commonwealth regimes. Equally, not all theatrical experience was royalist in focus. Staging the Revolution builds upon these findings to examine ways in which drama negotiated the political moment to explore the way in which drama was appropriated as a means of responding to the civil wars and reinventing the recent past and how drama was also reinvented as a consequence of theatre closure. The often cited notion that 1660 marked the return to monarchical government and the rebirth of many cultural practices that were banned under an austere, Puritan, regime was a product of the 1650s and 1660s and it was fostered in some of the dramatic output of the period. The very presence of these dramas and their textual transmission challenges the notion that all holiday pastimes were forbidden. Covering some of the work of John Dryden and William Davenant as well as lesser-known, anonymous and non-canonical writers, the book examines contemporary dramatic responses to the civil war period to show that, far from marking a new beginning, the Restoration is focused upon the previous thirty years.
Steve Blandford
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719082481
- eISBN:
- 9781781705759
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719082481.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This is the first book-length study of one of the most significant of all British television writers, Jimmy McGovern. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all his work for television including ...
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This is the first book-length study of one of the most significant of all British television writers, Jimmy McGovern. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all his work for television including early writing on Brookside, major documentary dramas such as Hillsborough and Sunday and more recent series such as The Street and Accused. Whilst the book is firmly focused on McGovern’s own work, the range of his output over the period in which he has been working also provides something of an overview of the radical changes in television drama commissioning that have taken place during this time. Without compromising his deeply-held convictions McGovern has managed to adapt to an ever changing environment, often using his position as a sought-after writer to defy industry trends. The book also challenges the notion of McGovern as an uncomplicated social realist in stylistic terms. Looking particularly at his later work, a case is made for McGovern employing a greater range of narrative approaches, albeit subtly and within boundaries that allow him to continue to write for large popular audiences. Finally it is worth pointing to the book’s examination of McGovern’s role in recent years as a mentor to new voices, frequently acting as a creative producer on series that he part-writes and part brings through different less-experienced names.Less
This is the first book-length study of one of the most significant of all British television writers, Jimmy McGovern. The book provides comprehensive coverage of all his work for television including early writing on Brookside, major documentary dramas such as Hillsborough and Sunday and more recent series such as The Street and Accused. Whilst the book is firmly focused on McGovern’s own work, the range of his output over the period in which he has been working also provides something of an overview of the radical changes in television drama commissioning that have taken place during this time. Without compromising his deeply-held convictions McGovern has managed to adapt to an ever changing environment, often using his position as a sought-after writer to defy industry trends. The book also challenges the notion of McGovern as an uncomplicated social realist in stylistic terms. Looking particularly at his later work, a case is made for McGovern employing a greater range of narrative approaches, albeit subtly and within boundaries that allow him to continue to write for large popular audiences. Finally it is worth pointing to the book’s examination of McGovern’s role in recent years as a mentor to new voices, frequently acting as a creative producer on series that he part-writes and part brings through different less-experienced names.
Robert Welch
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198121879
- eISBN:
- 9780191671364
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198121879.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Theatre is a business. Managing it requires planning in every step, and budget. All actions are monitored and projects that needed money are reviewed by a board of directors and by people who supply ...
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Theatre is a business. Managing it requires planning in every step, and budget. All actions are monitored and projects that needed money are reviewed by a board of directors and by people who supply funds before getting approval. A theatre, like a business, is an incorporation of interests needing a balance between visionary expansiveness and steely management. The directors of the Abbey Theatre have shown such a depth of commitment that made the company strong — from Yeats and Lady Gregory to Blythe; Macken to Mason. In this chapter, the objectives of the men and women who led the Abbey Theatre are discussed. Each director has proved to be adaptive to the times, and had objectives corresponding to what Ireland as a nation was going through at that particular time: for instance, Yeats and Lady Gregory had objectives that were national and nationalistic, given the political turmoil apparent in their era. Robinson, meanwhile, was influenced by his experiences in the Dublin Drama League, making his visions more European or Internationalist than Yeats' or Lady Gregory's, although he too had elements from the past that moved the theatre to create a cultural movement. Other directors were also sympathetic to what was happening around the theatre.Less
Theatre is a business. Managing it requires planning in every step, and budget. All actions are monitored and projects that needed money are reviewed by a board of directors and by people who supply funds before getting approval. A theatre, like a business, is an incorporation of interests needing a balance between visionary expansiveness and steely management. The directors of the Abbey Theatre have shown such a depth of commitment that made the company strong — from Yeats and Lady Gregory to Blythe; Macken to Mason. In this chapter, the objectives of the men and women who led the Abbey Theatre are discussed. Each director has proved to be adaptive to the times, and had objectives corresponding to what Ireland as a nation was going through at that particular time: for instance, Yeats and Lady Gregory had objectives that were national and nationalistic, given the political turmoil apparent in their era. Robinson, meanwhile, was influenced by his experiences in the Dublin Drama League, making his visions more European or Internationalist than Yeats' or Lady Gregory's, although he too had elements from the past that moved the theatre to create a cultural movement. Other directors were also sympathetic to what was happening around the theatre.
Kevin D. Cordi
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496821249
- eISBN:
- 9781496821294
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496821249.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
A professional storyteller journeys to discover what it means to be a teacher and a teller of tales. Just like Jack, he traces his path from being raised on the stories of Appalachia and explores if ...
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A professional storyteller journeys to discover what it means to be a teacher and a teller of tales. Just like Jack, he traces his path from being raised on the stories of Appalachia and explores if they have a place in the classroom. However, he does not climb a beanstalk to understand this journey, but instead challenges what it means to be a teller and educator and even the definition of storytelling. As he reflects on not only his stories but his students, he changes as a storyteller, as an educator, and better understands his students in the process. Drawing from storymaking, storytelling, and dramatic methods, he revisits and finds new stories to tell.Less
A professional storyteller journeys to discover what it means to be a teacher and a teller of tales. Just like Jack, he traces his path from being raised on the stories of Appalachia and explores if they have a place in the classroom. However, he does not climb a beanstalk to understand this journey, but instead challenges what it means to be a teller and educator and even the definition of storytelling. As he reflects on not only his stories but his students, he changes as a storyteller, as an educator, and better understands his students in the process. Drawing from storymaking, storytelling, and dramatic methods, he revisits and finds new stories to tell.
Lez Cooke
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719086786
- eISBN:
- 9781781706329
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719086786.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This pioneering study examines regional British television drama from its beginnings on the BBC and ITV in the 1950s to the arrival of Channel Four in 1982. It discusses the ways in which ...
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This pioneering study examines regional British television drama from its beginnings on the BBC and ITV in the 1950s to the arrival of Channel Four in 1982. It discusses the ways in which regionalism, regional culture and regional identity have been defined historically, outlines the history of regional broadcasting in the UK, and includes two detailed case studies – of Granada Television and BBC English Regions Drama – representing contrasting examples of regional television drama production during what is often described as the ‘golden age’ of British television. The conclusion brings the study up to date by discussing recent developments in regional drama production, and by considering future possibilities. A Sense of Place is based on original research and draws on interviews by the author with writers, producers, directors and executives including John Finch, Denis Forman, Alan Plater, David Rose, Philip Saville and Herbert Wise. It analyses a wide range of television plays, series and serials, including many previously given little attention such as The Younger Generation (1961), The Villains (1964-65), City ’68 (1967-68), Second City Firsts (1973-78), Trinity Tales (1975) and Empire Road (1978-79). Written in a scholarly but accessible style the book uncovers a forgotten history of British television drama that will be of interest to lecturers and students of television, media and cultural studies, as well as the general reader with an interest in the history of British television.Less
This pioneering study examines regional British television drama from its beginnings on the BBC and ITV in the 1950s to the arrival of Channel Four in 1982. It discusses the ways in which regionalism, regional culture and regional identity have been defined historically, outlines the history of regional broadcasting in the UK, and includes two detailed case studies – of Granada Television and BBC English Regions Drama – representing contrasting examples of regional television drama production during what is often described as the ‘golden age’ of British television. The conclusion brings the study up to date by discussing recent developments in regional drama production, and by considering future possibilities. A Sense of Place is based on original research and draws on interviews by the author with writers, producers, directors and executives including John Finch, Denis Forman, Alan Plater, David Rose, Philip Saville and Herbert Wise. It analyses a wide range of television plays, series and serials, including many previously given little attention such as The Younger Generation (1961), The Villains (1964-65), City ’68 (1967-68), Second City Firsts (1973-78), Trinity Tales (1975) and Empire Road (1978-79). Written in a scholarly but accessible style the book uncovers a forgotten history of British television drama that will be of interest to lecturers and students of television, media and cultural studies, as well as the general reader with an interest in the history of British television.
Edith Hall
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199298891
- eISBN:
- 9780191711459
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199298891.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This study explores the numerous different ways in which we can understand the relationship between the real, social world in which the Athenians lived and the theatrical roles that they invented. In ...
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This study explores the numerous different ways in which we can understand the relationship between the real, social world in which the Athenians lived and the theatrical roles that they invented. In twelve studies of role types and the theatrical conventions that contributed to their creation — including women in childbirth, drowning barbarians, horny satyrs, allegorical representations of Comedy, peasant farmers, tragic masks, and solo sung arias — the argument is advanced that the interface between ancient Greek drama and social reality must be understood as a complicated and incessant process of mutual cross-pollination.Less
This study explores the numerous different ways in which we can understand the relationship between the real, social world in which the Athenians lived and the theatrical roles that they invented. In twelve studies of role types and the theatrical conventions that contributed to their creation — including women in childbirth, drowning barbarians, horny satyrs, allegorical representations of Comedy, peasant farmers, tragic masks, and solo sung arias — the argument is advanced that the interface between ancient Greek drama and social reality must be understood as a complicated and incessant process of mutual cross-pollination.
Joanna Hofer-Robinson and Beth Palmer (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474439534
- eISBN:
- 9781474465106
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439534.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Featuring previously unpublished material alongside famous plays,this pioneering edition provides access to some of the most popular plays of the nineteenth century. Characterised by exhilarating ...
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Featuring previously unpublished material alongside famous plays,this pioneering edition provides access to some of the most popular plays of the nineteenth century. Characterised by exhilarating plots, large-scale special effects and often transgressive characterisation, these dramas are still exciting for modern readers. This anthology lays the foundation for further scholarly work on sensation drama and focuses public attention on to this influential and immensely popular genre.It features five plays from writers including Dion Boucicault and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. These are supported by a substantial critical apparatus, which adds further value to the anthology by providing rich details on performance history and textual variants. The critical introduction situates the genre in its cultural context and argues for the significance of sensation drama to shifting theatrical cultures and practices.Less
Featuring previously unpublished material alongside famous plays,this pioneering edition provides access to some of the most popular plays of the nineteenth century. Characterised by exhilarating plots, large-scale special effects and often transgressive characterisation, these dramas are still exciting for modern readers. This anthology lays the foundation for further scholarly work on sensation drama and focuses public attention on to this influential and immensely popular genre.It features five plays from writers including Dion Boucicault and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. These are supported by a substantial critical apparatus, which adds further value to the anthology by providing rich details on performance history and textual variants. The critical introduction situates the genre in its cultural context and argues for the significance of sensation drama to shifting theatrical cultures and practices.
Terence McSweeney (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474413817
- eISBN:
- 9781474430456
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474413817.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
American Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11 is a ground-breaking collection of essays by some of the foremost scholars writing in the field of contemporary American film. Through a dynamic critical ...
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American Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11 is a ground-breaking collection of essays by some of the foremost scholars writing in the field of contemporary American film. Through a dynamic critical analysis of the defining films of the turbulent post-9/11 decade, the volume explores and interrogates the impact of 9/11 and the 'War on Terror' on American cinema and culture. In a vibrant discussion of films like American Sniper (2014), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Spectre (2015), The Hateful Eight (2015), Lincoln (2012), The Mist (2007), Children of Men (2006), Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron> (2015), noted authors Geoff King, Guy Westwell, John Shelton Lawrence, Ian Scott, Andrew Schopp, James Kendrick, Sean Redmond, Steffen Hantke and many others consider the power of popular film to function as a potent cultural artefact, able to both reflect the defining fears and anxieties of the tumultuous era, but also shape them in compelling and resonant ways.Less
American Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11 is a ground-breaking collection of essays by some of the foremost scholars writing in the field of contemporary American film. Through a dynamic critical analysis of the defining films of the turbulent post-9/11 decade, the volume explores and interrogates the impact of 9/11 and the 'War on Terror' on American cinema and culture. In a vibrant discussion of films like American Sniper (2014), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Spectre (2015), The Hateful Eight (2015), Lincoln (2012), The Mist (2007), Children of Men (2006), Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron> (2015), noted authors Geoff King, Guy Westwell, John Shelton Lawrence, Ian Scott, Andrew Schopp, James Kendrick, Sean Redmond, Steffen Hantke and many others consider the power of popular film to function as a potent cultural artefact, able to both reflect the defining fears and anxieties of the tumultuous era, but also shape them in compelling and resonant ways.
Ian Whittington
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474413596
- eISBN:
- 9781474444897
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474413596.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Writing the Radio War positions the Second World War as a critical moment in the history of cultural mediation in Britain. Through chapters focusing on the ‘broadbrow’ radicalism of J.B. Priestley, ...
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Writing the Radio War positions the Second World War as a critical moment in the history of cultural mediation in Britain. Through chapters focusing on the ‘broadbrow’ radicalism of J.B. Priestley, ground-breaking works by Louis MacNeice and James Hanley at the BBC Features Department, frontline reporting by Denis Johnston, and the emergence of a West Indian literary identity in the broadcasts of Una Marson, Writing the Radio War explores how these writers capitalized on the particularities of the sonic medium to communicate their visions of wartime and postwar Britain and its empire. By combining literary aesthetics with the acoustics of space, accent, and dialect, writers created aural communities that at times converged, and at times contended, with official wartime versions of Britain and Britishness. Though rarely controversial, the broadcasts of these writers navigated an environment of political compromise in order to present new articulations of British and imperial identity that set the stage for the postwar multi-ethnic welfare state to come.Less
Writing the Radio War positions the Second World War as a critical moment in the history of cultural mediation in Britain. Through chapters focusing on the ‘broadbrow’ radicalism of J.B. Priestley, ground-breaking works by Louis MacNeice and James Hanley at the BBC Features Department, frontline reporting by Denis Johnston, and the emergence of a West Indian literary identity in the broadcasts of Una Marson, Writing the Radio War explores how these writers capitalized on the particularities of the sonic medium to communicate their visions of wartime and postwar Britain and its empire. By combining literary aesthetics with the acoustics of space, accent, and dialect, writers created aural communities that at times converged, and at times contended, with official wartime versions of Britain and Britishness. Though rarely controversial, the broadcasts of these writers navigated an environment of political compromise in order to present new articulations of British and imperial identity that set the stage for the postwar multi-ethnic welfare state to come.
Allison K. Deutermann
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474411264
- eISBN:
- 9781474422154
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474411264.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Early modern drama was in fundamental ways an aural art form. How plays should sound and how they should be heard were questions vital to the formal development of early modern drama, and ...
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Early modern drama was in fundamental ways an aural art form. How plays should sound and how they should be heard were questions vital to the formal development of early modern drama, and particularly to two of its most popular genres: revenge tragedy and city comedy. Simply put, theatregoers were taught to hear these plays differently. Revenge tragedies by William Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd imagine sound stabbing, piercing and slicing into listeners' bodies on and off the stage; while comedies by Ben Jonson and John Marston imagine it being sampled selectively and according to taste. Listening for Theatrical Form in Early Modern England traces the interconnected development of these two genres and auditory modes over six decades of commercial theatre history, combining surveys of the theatrical marketplace with focused attention to specific plays and to the non-dramatic literature that gives this interest in audition texture: anatomy texts, sermons, music treatises and manuals on rhetoric and poetics.Less
Early modern drama was in fundamental ways an aural art form. How plays should sound and how they should be heard were questions vital to the formal development of early modern drama, and particularly to two of its most popular genres: revenge tragedy and city comedy. Simply put, theatregoers were taught to hear these plays differently. Revenge tragedies by William Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd imagine sound stabbing, piercing and slicing into listeners' bodies on and off the stage; while comedies by Ben Jonson and John Marston imagine it being sampled selectively and according to taste. Listening for Theatrical Form in Early Modern England traces the interconnected development of these two genres and auditory modes over six decades of commercial theatre history, combining surveys of the theatrical marketplace with focused attention to specific plays and to the non-dramatic literature that gives this interest in audition texture: anatomy texts, sermons, music treatises and manuals on rhetoric and poetics.
R. S. White
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780719099748
- eISBN:
- 9781526121165
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719099748.003.0008
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The Conclusion draws together some of the threads running through this book pertaining to love conventions evident in modern movies which, it is argued, are influenced by Shakespeare’s comedies and ...
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The Conclusion draws together some of the threads running through this book pertaining to love conventions evident in modern movies which, it is argued, are influenced by Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedy of love. Infatuation, romance, attachment, and loss, are all defined in his plays in ways which reappear in modern movies – not, it is argued, as a result of ‘universals’ but a specific line of cultural influence running from Shakespeare’s theatrical practice down to the love stories of modern movies which are in turn so pervasively influential over modern conceptualising of love, at least in the Western World.Less
The Conclusion draws together some of the threads running through this book pertaining to love conventions evident in modern movies which, it is argued, are influenced by Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedy of love. Infatuation, romance, attachment, and loss, are all defined in his plays in ways which reappear in modern movies – not, it is argued, as a result of ‘universals’ but a specific line of cultural influence running from Shakespeare’s theatrical practice down to the love stories of modern movies which are in turn so pervasively influential over modern conceptualising of love, at least in the Western World.
Graham Parry
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199604777
- eISBN:
- 9780191729355
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199604777.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Poetry
This chapter attempts to characterize Herrick's religious position during the contentious decades of the 1620s, '30s and '40s by examining the diversity of poems in his collection of sacred verse, ...
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This chapter attempts to characterize Herrick's religious position during the contentious decades of the 1620s, '30s and '40s by examining the diversity of poems in his collection of sacred verse, Noble Numbers. Herrick grew up in a Calvinist household, yet was attracted towards the Laudian movement in the Church by his association with the Duke of Buckingham and by his desire to advance in court circles. His principal patron, however, seems to have been John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, a middle-of-the-road churchman. These various components of his doctrinal formation are all apparent in his collected religious poetry. He is not the high ceremonialist Laudian poet he is often made out to be, but a figure whose beliefs and practices were shaped by pagan, Judaic, Catholic and Calvinist influences, a man who used poetry to explore the uncertainties of his belief.Less
This chapter attempts to characterize Herrick's religious position during the contentious decades of the 1620s, '30s and '40s by examining the diversity of poems in his collection of sacred verse, Noble Numbers. Herrick grew up in a Calvinist household, yet was attracted towards the Laudian movement in the Church by his association with the Duke of Buckingham and by his desire to advance in court circles. His principal patron, however, seems to have been John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, a middle-of-the-road churchman. These various components of his doctrinal formation are all apparent in his collected religious poetry. He is not the high ceremonialist Laudian poet he is often made out to be, but a figure whose beliefs and practices were shaped by pagan, Judaic, Catholic and Calvinist influences, a man who used poetry to explore the uncertainties of his belief.
Adrian Frazier
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199609888
- eISBN:
- 9780191731778
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609888.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
While the plays of J. M. Synge are normally seen in the context of the ‘Irish dramatic revival,’ or the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, this chapter relates them to a wider spectrum of theatrical ...
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While the plays of J. M. Synge are normally seen in the context of the ‘Irish dramatic revival,’ or the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, this chapter relates them to a wider spectrum of theatrical entertainments in Paris and particularly London. It follows a recent trend in theatre history to consider plays in their original performance contexts, rather than as dramas on the page, or primarily in relation to other writings by the same author. ‘Thick descriptions’ are provided of the activities of the writers and founders of the Irish dramatic revival in London in April 1897 and in February 1900, and their efforts to create an alternative ‘business model’ for a literary theatre to the large London entertainment factories. Attention is also given to how Synge’s plays were subsequently received as items in a menu of entertainments by London audiences and critics.Less
While the plays of J. M. Synge are normally seen in the context of the ‘Irish dramatic revival,’ or the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, this chapter relates them to a wider spectrum of theatrical entertainments in Paris and particularly London. It follows a recent trend in theatre history to consider plays in their original performance contexts, rather than as dramas on the page, or primarily in relation to other writings by the same author. ‘Thick descriptions’ are provided of the activities of the writers and founders of the Irish dramatic revival in London in April 1897 and in February 1900, and their efforts to create an alternative ‘business model’ for a literary theatre to the large London entertainment factories. Attention is also given to how Synge’s plays were subsequently received as items in a menu of entertainments by London audiences and critics.
William D. Romanowski
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195387841
- eISBN:
- 9780199950188
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387841.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter uncovers contentious dealings between the Hays organization and the Church and Drama Association, which served as the Federal Council of Churches’ liaison with the film industry. These ...
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This chapter uncovers contentious dealings between the Hays organization and the Church and Drama Association, which served as the Federal Council of Churches’ liaison with the film industry. These events upended relations between the Hays Office and the Federal Council and also exposed the industry to a new line of attack. Determined to end the major studios’ ironclad control over the movies, some Protestants targeted distribution practices known as “block booking” and “blind selling” as a way to improve the cinema without resorting to censorship at the point of production. It proved to be a pivotal moment, not just in Protestant-Hollywood relations, but in the course of movie regulation. Severing cooperation between the Federal Council and the MPPDA opened the industry to the Protestants’ gravest fear, Catholic takeover.Less
This chapter uncovers contentious dealings between the Hays organization and the Church and Drama Association, which served as the Federal Council of Churches’ liaison with the film industry. These events upended relations between the Hays Office and the Federal Council and also exposed the industry to a new line of attack. Determined to end the major studios’ ironclad control over the movies, some Protestants targeted distribution practices known as “block booking” and “blind selling” as a way to improve the cinema without resorting to censorship at the point of production. It proved to be a pivotal moment, not just in Protestant-Hollywood relations, but in the course of movie regulation. Severing cooperation between the Federal Council and the MPPDA opened the industry to the Protestants’ gravest fear, Catholic takeover.
Daniel Peretti
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496814586
- eISBN:
- 9781496814623
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496814586.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Annually occurring in June, Metropolis, Illinois’s, Superman Celebration brings together tens of thousands of fans, and those who might want to be fans, of Superman. This chapter documents the ...
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Annually occurring in June, Metropolis, Illinois’s, Superman Celebration brings together tens of thousands of fans, and those who might want to be fans, of Superman. This chapter documents the Celebration with emphasis on its opening ceremony, which features a short drama enacted in front of a fifteen-foot Superman statue. The opening ceremony dramatizes the relationship between the fans who travel to the small town from all over the world and the residents and local businesses and government. Looking at the drama as a ritual that transforms the city streets into an arena for festivity, this chapter also discusses fan participation and ownership through interviews and analysis of attendees and events. It includes a related discussion of the weekly trip to buy comics at a specialty shop as ritual.Less
Annually occurring in June, Metropolis, Illinois’s, Superman Celebration brings together tens of thousands of fans, and those who might want to be fans, of Superman. This chapter documents the Celebration with emphasis on its opening ceremony, which features a short drama enacted in front of a fifteen-foot Superman statue. The opening ceremony dramatizes the relationship between the fans who travel to the small town from all over the world and the residents and local businesses and government. Looking at the drama as a ritual that transforms the city streets into an arena for festivity, this chapter also discusses fan participation and ownership through interviews and analysis of attendees and events. It includes a related discussion of the weekly trip to buy comics at a specialty shop as ritual.
Laura Gribbon and Sarah Hawas
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9789774165337
- eISBN:
- 9781617971303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- American University in Cairo Press
- DOI:
- 10.5743/cairo/9789774165337.003.0003
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
Translates some of the most decisive and influential discursive and performative moments that shaped the early drama of the unfolding text of Egypt's uprising. By drawing on analytical tools from the ...
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Translates some of the most decisive and influential discursive and performative moments that shaped the early drama of the unfolding text of Egypt's uprising. By drawing on analytical tools from the fields of translation, performance, and gender studies, as well as social movement theory, the authors translate at both the linguistic and semiotic levels selections from these transformative moments that impacted millions of Egyptians on social and conventional media networks by such diverse actors as activists Asmaa Mahfouz and Wael Ghoneim, former president Hosni Mubarak and General Mohsen al-Fangari. The authors read these discursive interventions as theatrical performances, the impact of which can only be understood through a thick translation that attends not just to the linguistic but to the affective, emotive, and semiotic levels of these transformative discourses.Less
Translates some of the most decisive and influential discursive and performative moments that shaped the early drama of the unfolding text of Egypt's uprising. By drawing on analytical tools from the fields of translation, performance, and gender studies, as well as social movement theory, the authors translate at both the linguistic and semiotic levels selections from these transformative moments that impacted millions of Egyptians on social and conventional media networks by such diverse actors as activists Asmaa Mahfouz and Wael Ghoneim, former president Hosni Mubarak and General Mohsen al-Fangari. The authors read these discursive interventions as theatrical performances, the impact of which can only be understood through a thick translation that attends not just to the linguistic but to the affective, emotive, and semiotic levels of these transformative discourses.
Neil Gould
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823228713
- eISBN:
- 9780823241798
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823228713.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
Thomas Dixon, director-general of the National Drama Corporation suggests that Herbert meets with him to discuss providing an original score for Dixon's new film, The Fall of a Nation. The premier ...
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Thomas Dixon, director-general of the National Drama Corporation suggests that Herbert meets with him to discuss providing an original score for Dixon's new film, The Fall of a Nation. The premier was to be staged at the Metropolitan Opera House, but problems arose and the Liberty Theater was secured.Less
Thomas Dixon, director-general of the National Drama Corporation suggests that Herbert meets with him to discuss providing an original score for Dixon's new film, The Fall of a Nation. The premier was to be staged at the Metropolitan Opera House, but problems arose and the Liberty Theater was secured.
