Cesar Lombardi Barber
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149523
- eISBN:
- 9781400839858
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149523.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book argues that Elizabethan seasonal festivals such as May Day and Twelfth Night are the key to understanding Shakespeare's comedies. Interweaving anthropology, social history, and literary ...
More
This book argues that Elizabethan seasonal festivals such as May Day and Twelfth Night are the key to understanding Shakespeare's comedies. Interweaving anthropology, social history, and literary criticism, the book traces the inward journey—psychological, bodily, spiritual—of the comedies: from confusion, raucous laughter, aching desire, and aggression, to harmony. Revealing the interplay between social custom and dramatic form, the book shows how the Elizabethan antithesis between everyday and holiday comes to life in the comedies' combination of seriousness and levity. “I have been led into an exploration of the way the social form of Elizabethan holidays contributed to the dramatic form of festive comedy. To relate this drama to holiday has proved to be the most effective way to describe its character. And this historical interplay between social and artistic form has an interest of its own: we can see here, with more clarity of outline and detail than is usually possible, how art develops underlying configurations in the social life of a culture.” This new edition includes a foreword that discusses the author's influence on later scholars and the recent critical disagreements that the author has inspired, showing that this book is as vital today as when it was originally published.Less
This book argues that Elizabethan seasonal festivals such as May Day and Twelfth Night are the key to understanding Shakespeare's comedies. Interweaving anthropology, social history, and literary criticism, the book traces the inward journey—psychological, bodily, spiritual—of the comedies: from confusion, raucous laughter, aching desire, and aggression, to harmony. Revealing the interplay between social custom and dramatic form, the book shows how the Elizabethan antithesis between everyday and holiday comes to life in the comedies' combination of seriousness and levity. “I have been led into an exploration of the way the social form of Elizabethan holidays contributed to the dramatic form of festive comedy. To relate this drama to holiday has proved to be the most effective way to describe its character. And this historical interplay between social and artistic form has an interest of its own: we can see here, with more clarity of outline and detail than is usually possible, how art develops underlying configurations in the social life of a culture.” This new edition includes a foreword that discusses the author's influence on later scholars and the recent critical disagreements that the author has inspired, showing that this book is as vital today as when it was originally published.
C. L. Barber
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149523
- eISBN:
- 9781400839858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149523.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
During Shakespeare's lifetime, England became conscious of holiday custom as it had not been before, in the very period when in many areas the keeping of holidays was on the decline. Shakespeare, ...
More
During Shakespeare's lifetime, England became conscious of holiday custom as it had not been before, in the very period when in many areas the keeping of holidays was on the decline. Shakespeare, coming to London from a rich market town, growing up in the relatively unselfconscious 1570s and 1580s and writing his festive plays in the decade of the 1590s, when most of the major elements in English society enjoyed a moment of reconcilement, was perfectly situated to express both a countryman's participation in holiday and a city man's consciousness of it. This chapter considers two principal forms of festivity, the May games and the Lord of Misrule, noticing particularly how what is done by the group of celebrants involves the composition of experience in ways which literature and drama could take over.Less
During Shakespeare's lifetime, England became conscious of holiday custom as it had not been before, in the very period when in many areas the keeping of holidays was on the decline. Shakespeare, coming to London from a rich market town, growing up in the relatively unselfconscious 1570s and 1580s and writing his festive plays in the decade of the 1590s, when most of the major elements in English society enjoyed a moment of reconcilement, was perfectly situated to express both a countryman's participation in holiday and a city man's consciousness of it. This chapter considers two principal forms of festivity, the May games and the Lord of Misrule, noticing particularly how what is done by the group of celebrants involves the composition of experience in ways which literature and drama could take over.
C. L. Barber
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149523
- eISBN:
- 9781400839858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149523.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter explores the connections between Shakespeare's comedies and Elizabethan holidays. It argues that the saturnalian pattern came to Shakespeare from many sources, both in social and ...
More
This chapter explores the connections between Shakespeare's comedies and Elizabethan holidays. It argues that the saturnalian pattern came to Shakespeare from many sources, both in social and artistic tradition. It appeared in the theatrical institution of clowning: the clown or Vice, when Shakespeare started to write, was a recognized anarchist who made aberration obvious by carrying release to absurd extremes. The cult of fools and folly, half social and half literary, embodied a similar polarization of experience. One could formulate the saturnalian pattern effectively by referring first to these traditions: Shakespeare's first completely masterful comic scenes were written for the clowns. But the festival occasion provides the clearest paradigm. It can illuminate not only those comedies where Shakespeare drew largely and directly on holiday motifs, like Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Twelfth Night, but also plays where there is relatively little direct use of holiday, notably As You Like It and Henry IV.Less
This chapter explores the connections between Shakespeare's comedies and Elizabethan holidays. It argues that the saturnalian pattern came to Shakespeare from many sources, both in social and artistic tradition. It appeared in the theatrical institution of clowning: the clown or Vice, when Shakespeare started to write, was a recognized anarchist who made aberration obvious by carrying release to absurd extremes. The cult of fools and folly, half social and half literary, embodied a similar polarization of experience. One could formulate the saturnalian pattern effectively by referring first to these traditions: Shakespeare's first completely masterful comic scenes were written for the clowns. But the festival occasion provides the clearest paradigm. It can illuminate not only those comedies where Shakespeare drew largely and directly on holiday motifs, like Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Twelfth Night, but also plays where there is relatively little direct use of holiday, notably As You Like It and Henry IV.
