Martin Puchner
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199730322
- eISBN:
- 9780199852796
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730322.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
The emergence of a newly ambitious drama, first called “new drama” and then “modern drama” endowed theater with a new sense of intellectual ambition, and this is described in this chapter. Modern ...
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The emergence of a newly ambitious drama, first called “new drama” and then “modern drama” endowed theater with a new sense of intellectual ambition, and this is described in this chapter. Modern drama is usually characterized as non-Aristotelian and it is in this account that the chapter argues it to be seen more as Platonic. Though the ideas of Plato are often dismissed as a resource on how to look on modern drama, the most significant features of it can be found in Plato's own dramatic practice. In addition, modern drama could be called Platonic due to the persistence of the idea that theater should be an intellectually serious undertaking—a theater of ideas. The chapter also discusses the extent to which modern drama is a Platonic drama by examining the relation between two authors of modern Socratic plays that have had a particular influence on modern drama.Less
The emergence of a newly ambitious drama, first called “new drama” and then “modern drama” endowed theater with a new sense of intellectual ambition, and this is described in this chapter. Modern drama is usually characterized as non-Aristotelian and it is in this account that the chapter argues it to be seen more as Platonic. Though the ideas of Plato are often dismissed as a resource on how to look on modern drama, the most significant features of it can be found in Plato's own dramatic practice. In addition, modern drama could be called Platonic due to the persistence of the idea that theater should be an intellectually serious undertaking—a theater of ideas. The chapter also discusses the extent to which modern drama is a Platonic drama by examining the relation between two authors of modern Socratic plays that have had a particular influence on modern drama.
M. Cody Poulton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833411
- eISBN:
- 9780824869151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833411.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter identifies the Taishō era and Henrik Ibsen with the birth of modern drama in Japan. It was also the birth of the shingeki movement, a fact that was borne out by another Ibsen production, ...
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This chapter identifies the Taishō era and Henrik Ibsen with the birth of modern drama in Japan. It was also the birth of the shingeki movement, a fact that was borne out by another Ibsen production, that of A Doll House, by Tsubouchi Shōyō's Literary Society in 1911. But it was not only “young men” who were affected by Ibsen's plays. Almost singlehandedly, the plays were responsible for the “new woman” (atarashii onna) phenomenon. This was a time when modern theatre and drama became major players in the rising bourgeois culture. In short, Taishō was an era when theatre became a key forum for the exchange of artistic, social, and political ideas in Japan and drama came into its own as a literary form.Less
This chapter identifies the Taishō era and Henrik Ibsen with the birth of modern drama in Japan. It was also the birth of the shingeki movement, a fact that was borne out by another Ibsen production, that of A Doll House, by Tsubouchi Shōyō's Literary Society in 1911. But it was not only “young men” who were affected by Ibsen's plays. Almost singlehandedly, the plays were responsible for the “new woman” (atarashii onna) phenomenon. This was a time when modern theatre and drama became major players in the rising bourgeois culture. In short, Taishō was an era when theatre became a key forum for the exchange of artistic, social, and political ideas in Japan and drama came into its own as a literary form.
M. Cody Poulton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833411
- eISBN:
- 9780824869151
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833411.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In the opening decades of the twentieth century in Japan, practically every major author wrote plays that were published and performed. This book examines the full range of early twentieth-century ...
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In the opening decades of the twentieth century in Japan, practically every major author wrote plays that were published and performed. This book examines the full range of early twentieth-century Japanese drama and includes translations of representative one-act plays. The book looks at the emergence of drama as a modern literary and artistic form and chronicles the creation of modern Japanese drama as a reaction to both traditional (particularly kabuki) dramaturgy and European drama. Translations and productions of the latter became the model for the so-called New Theatre (shingeki), where the question of how to be both modern and Japanese at the same time was hotly contested. Following introductory chapters on the development of Japanese drama from the 1880s to the early 1930s, are translations of nine seminal one-act plays by nine dramatists, including two women, Okada Yachiyo and Hasegawa Shigure. The subject matter of these plays is that of modern drama everywhere: discord between men and women, between parents and children, and the resulting disintegration of marriages and families. Realism prevails as the mode of modernity, but other styles are presented: the symbolism of brittle melodrama, minimalistic lyricism, politically incisive expressionism, and a proto-absurdist work by Japan's master of prewar drama, Kishida Kunio.Less
In the opening decades of the twentieth century in Japan, practically every major author wrote plays that were published and performed. This book examines the full range of early twentieth-century Japanese drama and includes translations of representative one-act plays. The book looks at the emergence of drama as a modern literary and artistic form and chronicles the creation of modern Japanese drama as a reaction to both traditional (particularly kabuki) dramaturgy and European drama. Translations and productions of the latter became the model for the so-called New Theatre (shingeki), where the question of how to be both modern and Japanese at the same time was hotly contested. Following introductory chapters on the development of Japanese drama from the 1880s to the early 1930s, are translations of nine seminal one-act plays by nine dramatists, including two women, Okada Yachiyo and Hasegawa Shigure. The subject matter of these plays is that of modern drama everywhere: discord between men and women, between parents and children, and the resulting disintegration of marriages and families. Realism prevails as the mode of modernity, but other styles are presented: the symbolism of brittle melodrama, minimalistic lyricism, politically incisive expressionism, and a proto-absurdist work by Japan's master of prewar drama, Kishida Kunio.
David Carnegie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199641819
- eISBN:
- 9780191749025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641819.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This introduction describes the structure of the book and the arguments of each contributor. It also outlines the main questions around the lost play Cardenio: was it really by Shakespeare and ...
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This introduction describes the structure of the book and the arguments of each contributor. It also outlines the main questions around the lost play Cardenio: was it really by Shakespeare and Fletcher? Was Theobald’s Double Falsehood really based on Cardenio? If so, how much did Theobald adapt it, and how much is original? Or was it his own forgery passed off as Shakespeare, as Theobald’s enemies claimed? How closely did the original Cardenio follow its source material in Cervantes’s Don Quixote? What can we learn from close scrutiny of the available documents? Can computer-aided stylometric tests establish convincing proof of Shakespeare and Fletcher authorship lying behind Theobald’s eighteenth-century adaptation? Can close critical analysis reveal what Theobald probably cut? Can modern stage adaptations of Double Falsehood recreate something akin to the lost original? All these questions are central to one of the great current debates about Shakespeare and early modern drama.Less
This introduction describes the structure of the book and the arguments of each contributor. It also outlines the main questions around the lost play Cardenio: was it really by Shakespeare and Fletcher? Was Theobald’s Double Falsehood really based on Cardenio? If so, how much did Theobald adapt it, and how much is original? Or was it his own forgery passed off as Shakespeare, as Theobald’s enemies claimed? How closely did the original Cardenio follow its source material in Cervantes’s Don Quixote? What can we learn from close scrutiny of the available documents? Can computer-aided stylometric tests establish convincing proof of Shakespeare and Fletcher authorship lying behind Theobald’s eighteenth-century adaptation? Can close critical analysis reveal what Theobald probably cut? Can modern stage adaptations of Double Falsehood recreate something akin to the lost original? All these questions are central to one of the great current debates about Shakespeare and early modern drama.
Laurence Publicover
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198806813
- eISBN:
- 9780191844362
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198806813.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
The Introduction lays out the argument of the book, in part through discussion of critical responses to the geography of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Situating the book’s critical approach within the ...
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The Introduction lays out the argument of the book, in part through discussion of critical responses to the geography of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Situating the book’s critical approach within the several scholarly fields it engages, including theatre history, theories of genre, Mediterranean studies, and theories of intertextuality, it then outlines the contribution Dramatic Geography makes to existing discussions of early modern Mediterranean plays. The Introduction goes on to offer an overview and analysis of how early modern drama stages space and location, working through episodes from plays including Henry V, Hamlet, and Antony and Cleopatra. Finally, it differentiates early modern ways of staging space from those employed in the Restoration theatres, stressing the greater flexibility and complexity of early modern methods, and makes a case for the importance of understanding dramatic geography if we are better to comprehend the ways in which drama creates meaning.Less
The Introduction lays out the argument of the book, in part through discussion of critical responses to the geography of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Situating the book’s critical approach within the several scholarly fields it engages, including theatre history, theories of genre, Mediterranean studies, and theories of intertextuality, it then outlines the contribution Dramatic Geography makes to existing discussions of early modern Mediterranean plays. The Introduction goes on to offer an overview and analysis of how early modern drama stages space and location, working through episodes from plays including Henry V, Hamlet, and Antony and Cleopatra. Finally, it differentiates early modern ways of staging space from those employed in the Restoration theatres, stressing the greater flexibility and complexity of early modern methods, and makes a case for the importance of understanding dramatic geography if we are better to comprehend the ways in which drama creates meaning.
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.
Vasudha Dalmia
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195695052
- eISBN:
- 9780199080335
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195695052.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This chapter focuses on Jayshankar Prasad of Banaras who led the Hindi literary drama into its maturation and sophistication. Prasad was largely known as a short story writer and a dramatist but his ...
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This chapter focuses on Jayshankar Prasad of Banaras who led the Hindi literary drama into its maturation and sophistication. Prasad was largely known as a short story writer and a dramatist but his enduring reputation was to be found in poetry. He came to occupy a position in the forefront of Chhayavad, the new romantic movement in modern Hindi poetry. In this chapter, the concepts which underpinned Prasad’s understanding of Chhayavad poetry are discussed briefly as they are instrumental in understanding the poetic and historical sensibilities prevalent in Prasad’s drama. His aesthetics of the Hindi theatre are examined together with his assessment of the modern Hindi drama and the evolution of the stage since Bharatendu Harishchandra. The chapter concludes with a discussion on Prasad’s most compact and mature drama, the Dhruvasvamini in order to evaluate the dramaturgical principles he developed.Less
This chapter focuses on Jayshankar Prasad of Banaras who led the Hindi literary drama into its maturation and sophistication. Prasad was largely known as a short story writer and a dramatist but his enduring reputation was to be found in poetry. He came to occupy a position in the forefront of Chhayavad, the new romantic movement in modern Hindi poetry. In this chapter, the concepts which underpinned Prasad’s understanding of Chhayavad poetry are discussed briefly as they are instrumental in understanding the poetic and historical sensibilities prevalent in Prasad’s drama. His aesthetics of the Hindi theatre are examined together with his assessment of the modern Hindi drama and the evolution of the stage since Bharatendu Harishchandra. The chapter concludes with a discussion on Prasad’s most compact and mature drama, the Dhruvasvamini in order to evaluate the dramaturgical principles he developed.
Sidney Albert
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037646
- eISBN:
- 9780813043951
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037646.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In this in-depth study of Bernard Shaw's most controversial drama, Major Barbara (1905), Sidney P. Albert traces the play's profound connections with Plato's Republic and Euripides's Bacchae, ...
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In this in-depth study of Bernard Shaw's most controversial drama, Major Barbara (1905), Sidney P. Albert traces the play's profound connections with Plato's Republic and Euripides's Bacchae, providing a comprehensive reading that evokes unexplored depths of meaning and challenges prevailing conceptions. Albert reveals deeper dimensions of the work that have gone previously unexplored and demonstrates the influence these classics had on Shaw's development as an artist and philosopher. He explores the Dionysian and Platonic elements in Major Barbara to illuminate how classical themes were modernized by Shaw. While examining the interrelations of the central characters in their social settings, Shaw, Plato, and Euripides searches out the complex layers of meaning in one of Shaw's most enigmatic dramas. Albert convincingly reveals Shaw's interaction with Greek thought in a way that reconfirms ancient wisdom yet goes beyond it, adapting it to the social, political, and humanistic perspectives of the modern world. It is the only full-length book published on Shaw's important drama Major Barbara and is one of very few books demonstrating the importance of Shaw's classical influences. It provides a uniquely balanced and comprehensive close reading of Major Barbara that lays to rest numerous partial, unbalanced readings of the drama by critics.Less
In this in-depth study of Bernard Shaw's most controversial drama, Major Barbara (1905), Sidney P. Albert traces the play's profound connections with Plato's Republic and Euripides's Bacchae, providing a comprehensive reading that evokes unexplored depths of meaning and challenges prevailing conceptions. Albert reveals deeper dimensions of the work that have gone previously unexplored and demonstrates the influence these classics had on Shaw's development as an artist and philosopher. He explores the Dionysian and Platonic elements in Major Barbara to illuminate how classical themes were modernized by Shaw. While examining the interrelations of the central characters in their social settings, Shaw, Plato, and Euripides searches out the complex layers of meaning in one of Shaw's most enigmatic dramas. Albert convincingly reveals Shaw's interaction with Greek thought in a way that reconfirms ancient wisdom yet goes beyond it, adapting it to the social, political, and humanistic perspectives of the modern world. It is the only full-length book published on Shaw's important drama Major Barbara and is one of very few books demonstrating the importance of Shaw's classical influences. It provides a uniquely balanced and comprehensive close reading of Major Barbara that lays to rest numerous partial, unbalanced readings of the drama by critics.
Laurence Publicover
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198806813
- eISBN:
- 9780191844362
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198806813.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Focusing on early modern plays that stage encounters between peoples of different cultures, this book asks how a sense of geographical location was created in early modern theatres that featured ...
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Focusing on early modern plays that stage encounters between peoples of different cultures, this book asks how a sense of geographical location was created in early modern theatres that featured minimal scenery. While previous studies have stressed these plays’ connections to a historical Mediterranean in which England was increasingly involved, this book demonstrates how their dramatic geography was shaped through a literary and theatrical heritage. Reading canonical plays including The Merchant of Venice, The Jew of Malta, and The Tempest alongside lesser-known dramas such as Soliman and Perseda, Guy of Warwick, and The Travels of the Three English Brothers, Dramatic Geography illustrates, first, how early modern dramatists staging foreign worlds drew upon a romance tradition dating back to the medieval period, and second, how they responded to one another’s plays to create an ‘intertheatrical geography’. These strategies, the book argues, shape the plays’ wider meanings in important ways, and could only have operated within the theatrical environment peculiar to early modern London: one in which playwrights worked in close proximity, in one instance perhaps even living together while composing Mediterranean dramas, and one where they could expect audiences to respond to subtle generic and intertextual negotiations. In reassessing this group of plays, the book brings into conversation scholarship on theatre history, cultural encounter, and literary geography; it also contributes to current debates in early modern studies regarding the nature of dramatic authorship, the relationship between genre and history, and the continuities that run between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.Less
Focusing on early modern plays that stage encounters between peoples of different cultures, this book asks how a sense of geographical location was created in early modern theatres that featured minimal scenery. While previous studies have stressed these plays’ connections to a historical Mediterranean in which England was increasingly involved, this book demonstrates how their dramatic geography was shaped through a literary and theatrical heritage. Reading canonical plays including The Merchant of Venice, The Jew of Malta, and The Tempest alongside lesser-known dramas such as Soliman and Perseda, Guy of Warwick, and The Travels of the Three English Brothers, Dramatic Geography illustrates, first, how early modern dramatists staging foreign worlds drew upon a romance tradition dating back to the medieval period, and second, how they responded to one another’s plays to create an ‘intertheatrical geography’. These strategies, the book argues, shape the plays’ wider meanings in important ways, and could only have operated within the theatrical environment peculiar to early modern London: one in which playwrights worked in close proximity, in one instance perhaps even living together while composing Mediterranean dramas, and one where they could expect audiences to respond to subtle generic and intertextual negotiations. In reassessing this group of plays, the book brings into conversation scholarship on theatre history, cultural encounter, and literary geography; it also contributes to current debates in early modern studies regarding the nature of dramatic authorship, the relationship between genre and history, and the continuities that run between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Andrea Stevens
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748670499
- eISBN:
- 9780748693757
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748670499.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This book challenges the narrative of Shakespeare's ‘bare’ stage by looking at the ‘ground zero’ of early modern theatrical representation: the painted body of the actor. Organised as a series of ...
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This book challenges the narrative of Shakespeare's ‘bare’ stage by looking at the ‘ground zero’ of early modern theatrical representation: the painted body of the actor. Organised as a series of studies and considering the impact of the materiality of stage properties on live performance, the four chapters of the book examine goldface and divinity in York's Corpus Christi play; bloodiness in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, including the unexpected use of blood as a disguise device; blackface performance within seventeenth-century court masques and in popular plays performed at the public playhouses; and finally whiteface, death, and stoniness in two King's Men plays of 1611. Not only did dramatists turn to paint to sustain a variety of theatrical illusions, they also strategically manipulated the multiple significations of this technology to create stage characters with complex effects of depth; allude to past and to contemporary performances; and thrill audiences by showcasing actors’ virtuoso transformations. Addressing current debates about the relationship between pre- and early modern subjectivity and embodiment, this book challenges the persistent notion that the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries was built predominantly around a new, ‘modern’ language of interiority. As a whole, the book questions the boundaries of the period categories ‘medieval’ and ‘early modern’ by demonstrating important continuities in theatrical labour and theatrical materials from medieval cycle drama through to the popular and courtly drama of the 1630s.Less
This book challenges the narrative of Shakespeare's ‘bare’ stage by looking at the ‘ground zero’ of early modern theatrical representation: the painted body of the actor. Organised as a series of studies and considering the impact of the materiality of stage properties on live performance, the four chapters of the book examine goldface and divinity in York's Corpus Christi play; bloodiness in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, including the unexpected use of blood as a disguise device; blackface performance within seventeenth-century court masques and in popular plays performed at the public playhouses; and finally whiteface, death, and stoniness in two King's Men plays of 1611. Not only did dramatists turn to paint to sustain a variety of theatrical illusions, they also strategically manipulated the multiple significations of this technology to create stage characters with complex effects of depth; allude to past and to contemporary performances; and thrill audiences by showcasing actors’ virtuoso transformations. Addressing current debates about the relationship between pre- and early modern subjectivity and embodiment, this book challenges the persistent notion that the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries was built predominantly around a new, ‘modern’ language of interiority. As a whole, the book questions the boundaries of the period categories ‘medieval’ and ‘early modern’ by demonstrating important continuities in theatrical labour and theatrical materials from medieval cycle drama through to the popular and courtly drama of the 1630s.
Frederika Bain
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719090783
- eISBN:
- 9781781708866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719090783.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Focusing on early modern accounts of execution and murder in drama and cheap print, this chapter draws upon a group of broadside and pamphlet execution narratives from the late sixteenth to the ...
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Focusing on early modern accounts of execution and murder in drama and cheap print, this chapter draws upon a group of broadside and pamphlet execution narratives from the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, including accounts of the regicide of Charles I, and upon Thomas Preston’s (1537-1598) Cambyses, King of Persia (1569) and Shakespeare’s Richard III (c.1592-3). In their representation of the rhetorical performances of the passions of the key players, these texts illustrate not only how emotion might be communicated from one character to another, but also how they might persuade and ‘infect’ audiences and readers with contagious passion by manipulating the linguistic and dramatic conventions deemed appropriate in such deadly situations. Through dramatic performances of passion, the texts communicate important (and at times subversive) political arguments about the nature of tyranny versus legitimate rule, illustrating the potency of emotional performance on the early modern page and stage.Less
Focusing on early modern accounts of execution and murder in drama and cheap print, this chapter draws upon a group of broadside and pamphlet execution narratives from the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, including accounts of the regicide of Charles I, and upon Thomas Preston’s (1537-1598) Cambyses, King of Persia (1569) and Shakespeare’s Richard III (c.1592-3). In their representation of the rhetorical performances of the passions of the key players, these texts illustrate not only how emotion might be communicated from one character to another, but also how they might persuade and ‘infect’ audiences and readers with contagious passion by manipulating the linguistic and dramatic conventions deemed appropriate in such deadly situations. Through dramatic performances of passion, the texts communicate important (and at times subversive) political arguments about the nature of tyranny versus legitimate rule, illustrating the potency of emotional performance on the early modern page and stage.
Jennifer Higginbotham
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780748655908
- eISBN:
- 9780748684397
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748655908.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Using the two parts of Thomas Heywood’s Fair Maid of the West, or a Girl Worth Gold as a case study, this chapter charts the emergence of ‘girl’ into early modern English, tracing two major shifts in ...
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Using the two parts of Thomas Heywood’s Fair Maid of the West, or a Girl Worth Gold as a case study, this chapter charts the emergence of ‘girl’ into early modern English, tracing two major shifts in the development of the vocabulary of female youth in dictionaries, midwifery manuals, literature, and drama. The first shift began in the early sixteenth century and involved the proliferation of specialised terms for female children. Following this period of elaboration, a second shift took place in the mid-seventeenth century, when ‘girl’ and the other terms in its semantic network began to be defined as separate categories of female youth.Less
Using the two parts of Thomas Heywood’s Fair Maid of the West, or a Girl Worth Gold as a case study, this chapter charts the emergence of ‘girl’ into early modern English, tracing two major shifts in the development of the vocabulary of female youth in dictionaries, midwifery manuals, literature, and drama. The first shift began in the early sixteenth century and involved the proliferation of specialised terms for female children. Following this period of elaboration, a second shift took place in the mid-seventeenth century, when ‘girl’ and the other terms in its semantic network began to be defined as separate categories of female youth.
Katherine Gillen
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474417716
- eISBN:
- 9781474434539
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474417716.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
Chaste Value reassesses chastity’s significance in early modern drama, arguing that presentations of chastity inform the stage’s production of early capitalist subjectivity and social difference. ...
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Chaste Value reassesses chastity’s significance in early modern drama, arguing that presentations of chastity inform the stage’s production of early capitalist subjectivity and social difference. Plays invoke chastity—itself a quasi-commodity—to interrogate the relationship between personal and economic value. The economic imagery surrounding chastity ranges from romantic evocations of treasure to more quotidian references to usury, counterfeiting, and commodity exchange. Attending to such discourse in late Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, Chaste Value argues that representations of chastity (married fidelity as well as virginity) figure centrally within the early modern theatre’s interrogation of early capitalism, particularly with regard to the incorporation of people into commercial exchange. Through chastity discourse, the stage disrupts pre-capitalist ideas of intrinsic value while also reallocating such value according to emerging hierarchies of gender, race, class, and nationality. Chastity, therefore, emerges as a central category within early articulations of humanity, determining who possesses intrinsic value and, conversely, whose bodies and labour can be incorporated into market exchange.Less
Chaste Value reassesses chastity’s significance in early modern drama, arguing that presentations of chastity inform the stage’s production of early capitalist subjectivity and social difference. Plays invoke chastity—itself a quasi-commodity—to interrogate the relationship between personal and economic value. The economic imagery surrounding chastity ranges from romantic evocations of treasure to more quotidian references to usury, counterfeiting, and commodity exchange. Attending to such discourse in late Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, Chaste Value argues that representations of chastity (married fidelity as well as virginity) figure centrally within the early modern theatre’s interrogation of early capitalism, particularly with regard to the incorporation of people into commercial exchange. Through chastity discourse, the stage disrupts pre-capitalist ideas of intrinsic value while also reallocating such value according to emerging hierarchies of gender, race, class, and nationality. Chastity, therefore, emerges as a central category within early articulations of humanity, determining who possesses intrinsic value and, conversely, whose bodies and labour can be incorporated into market exchange.
William M. Hamlin
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199684113
- eISBN:
- 9780191764677
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684113.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, European Literature
This chapter centres on the claim that John Florio's translation of the Essays lends a strongly theatrical inflection to Montaigne's original French. Not only at the level of dramatic allusion, but ...
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This chapter centres on the claim that John Florio's translation of the Essays lends a strongly theatrical inflection to Montaigne's original French. Not only at the level of dramatic allusion, but within the very fabric of diction, idiom, and metaphor, Florio renders Montaigne into an English sharply attuned to contemporary interest in stage-plays and spectacle. The voice of Montaigne, for Jacobean poets, playwrights, and readers, is a voice exhibiting profound affinities with a theatrical orientation toward the world.Less
This chapter centres on the claim that John Florio's translation of the Essays lends a strongly theatrical inflection to Montaigne's original French. Not only at the level of dramatic allusion, but within the very fabric of diction, idiom, and metaphor, Florio renders Montaigne into an English sharply attuned to contemporary interest in stage-plays and spectacle. The voice of Montaigne, for Jacobean poets, playwrights, and readers, is a voice exhibiting profound affinities with a theatrical orientation toward the world.
Catherine Diamond
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835842
- eISBN:
- 9780824871840
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835842.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Asian theatre is usually studied from the perspective of the major traditions of China, Japan, India, and Indonesia. Now, looking at the contemporary theatre scene in Southeast Asia, this book shows ...
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Asian theatre is usually studied from the perspective of the major traditions of China, Japan, India, and Indonesia. Now, looking at the contemporary theatre scene in Southeast Asia, this book shows that performance in some of the lesser known theatre traditions offers a vivid and fascinating picture of the rapidly changing societies in the region. The book examines how traditional, modern, and contemporary dramatic works are being presented for local audiences. It places performances in their historical and cultural contexts and also connects them to the social, political, linguistic, and religious movements of the last two decades. Each chapter addresses theatre in a different country and highlights performances exhibiting the unique conditions and concerns of a particular place and time. Most performances revolve in some manner around “contemporary modernity,” questioning what it means—for good or ill—to be a part of the globalized world. Chapters are grouped by three general and overlapping themes. The first is characterized by the increased participation of women in the performing arts. The second is concerned with the effects of censorship on theatre production. A third is distinguished by a focus on nationalism. The book shows the many influences of the past and how the past continues to affect cultural perceptions. It addresses major trends, and underscores how theatre continues to attract new practitioners and reflect the changing aspirations and anxieties of societies in immediate and provocative ways even as it is being marginalized by television, film, and the internet.Less
Asian theatre is usually studied from the perspective of the major traditions of China, Japan, India, and Indonesia. Now, looking at the contemporary theatre scene in Southeast Asia, this book shows that performance in some of the lesser known theatre traditions offers a vivid and fascinating picture of the rapidly changing societies in the region. The book examines how traditional, modern, and contemporary dramatic works are being presented for local audiences. It places performances in their historical and cultural contexts and also connects them to the social, political, linguistic, and religious movements of the last two decades. Each chapter addresses theatre in a different country and highlights performances exhibiting the unique conditions and concerns of a particular place and time. Most performances revolve in some manner around “contemporary modernity,” questioning what it means—for good or ill—to be a part of the globalized world. Chapters are grouped by three general and overlapping themes. The first is characterized by the increased participation of women in the performing arts. The second is concerned with the effects of censorship on theatre production. A third is distinguished by a focus on nationalism. The book shows the many influences of the past and how the past continues to affect cultural perceptions. It addresses major trends, and underscores how theatre continues to attract new practitioners and reflect the changing aspirations and anxieties of societies in immediate and provocative ways even as it is being marginalized by television, film, and the internet.
Gavin Hollis
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198734321
- eISBN:
- 9780191799167
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198734321.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature, Drama
This book examines why early modern drama’s response to English settlement in the New World was muted, even though the so-called golden age of Shakespeare coincided with the so-called golden age of ...
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This book examines why early modern drama’s response to English settlement in the New World was muted, even though the so-called golden age of Shakespeare coincided with the so-called golden age of exploration: no play is set in the Americas; few plays treat colonization as central to the plot; and a handful feature Native American characters (most of whom are Europeans in disguise). However, advocates of colonialism in the seventeenth century denounced playing companies as enemies on a par with the Pope and the Devil. Instead of writing off these accusers as paranoid cranks, this book takes as its starting point the possibility that they were astute playgoers. By so doing we can begin to see the emergence of a “picture of America,” and of the Virginia colony in particular, across a number of plays performed for London audiences: Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, The Staple of News, and his collaboration with Marston and Chapman, Eastward Ho!; Robert Greene’s Orlando Furioso; Massinger’s The City Madam; Massinger and Fletcher’s The Sea Voyage; Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl; Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Fletcher and Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. We can glean the significance of this picture, not only for the troubled Virginia Company, but also for London theater audiences. And we can see that the picture that was beginning to form was, as the anti-theatricalists surmised, often slanderous, condemnatory, and, as it were, anti-American.Less
This book examines why early modern drama’s response to English settlement in the New World was muted, even though the so-called golden age of Shakespeare coincided with the so-called golden age of exploration: no play is set in the Americas; few plays treat colonization as central to the plot; and a handful feature Native American characters (most of whom are Europeans in disguise). However, advocates of colonialism in the seventeenth century denounced playing companies as enemies on a par with the Pope and the Devil. Instead of writing off these accusers as paranoid cranks, this book takes as its starting point the possibility that they were astute playgoers. By so doing we can begin to see the emergence of a “picture of America,” and of the Virginia colony in particular, across a number of plays performed for London audiences: Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, The Staple of News, and his collaboration with Marston and Chapman, Eastward Ho!; Robert Greene’s Orlando Furioso; Massinger’s The City Madam; Massinger and Fletcher’s The Sea Voyage; Middleton and Dekker’s The Roaring Girl; Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Fletcher and Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. We can glean the significance of this picture, not only for the troubled Virginia Company, but also for London theater audiences. And we can see that the picture that was beginning to form was, as the anti-theatricalists surmised, often slanderous, condemnatory, and, as it were, anti-American.
Cory A. Reed
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190256555
- eISBN:
- 9780190256579
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190256555.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Cognitive approaches to literature and culture hold promise for the analysis of theatrical performance in general, and early modern drama in particular. A cognitive approach to the complex dynamics ...
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Cognitive approaches to literature and culture hold promise for the analysis of theatrical performance in general, and early modern drama in particular. A cognitive approach to the complex dynamics of live performance sheds light on the ways an audience responds emotionally to, and engages with intellectually, the actions it perceives on stage. Assuming that human physiology and cognitive processes remain constant across time, cognitive approaches to live performance may allow us to approximate the emotional and intellectual dimensions of audience–performer interactions in the shared space of the theatrical corrales centuries ago. Cervantes’ early play, El trato de Argel [The Trade of Algiers], may have participated in a campaign to raise public awareness of the plight of enslaved Spaniards in Algerian prisons. Hence it lends itself to a cognitive analysis of the role of empathy in creating audience sympathy that might ultimately lead to an early modern form of proto-activism.Less
Cognitive approaches to literature and culture hold promise for the analysis of theatrical performance in general, and early modern drama in particular. A cognitive approach to the complex dynamics of live performance sheds light on the ways an audience responds emotionally to, and engages with intellectually, the actions it perceives on stage. Assuming that human physiology and cognitive processes remain constant across time, cognitive approaches to live performance may allow us to approximate the emotional and intellectual dimensions of audience–performer interactions in the shared space of the theatrical corrales centuries ago. Cervantes’ early play, El trato de Argel [The Trade of Algiers], may have participated in a campaign to raise public awareness of the plight of enslaved Spaniards in Algerian prisons. Hence it lends itself to a cognitive analysis of the role of empathy in creating audience sympathy that might ultimately lead to an early modern form of proto-activism.
M. Cody Poulton
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833411
- eISBN:
- 9780824869151
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833411.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter contains a translation of Brief Night, one of Kubota Mantarō's many dramas in the turbulent years between the tail end of the Meiji era and Japan's postwar reconstruction. Called “the ...
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This chapter contains a translation of Brief Night, one of Kubota Mantarō's many dramas in the turbulent years between the tail end of the Meiji era and Japan's postwar reconstruction. Called “the poet of Asakusa” for his delicate portrayals of the common people of his native Tokyo neighborhood, Kubota's dramas are essentially elegies to a way of life that even in the Taishō era was on its way out. Brief Night is typical of his plays—in a nutshell, it is the portrait of a pampered son (Isaburō) of a now deceased shopkeeper; the young man's poor judgment and taste for the bottle bring about the ruin of his house. The drama focuses on the negotiated breakup of Isaburō's marriage to Ofusa.Less
This chapter contains a translation of Brief Night, one of Kubota Mantarō's many dramas in the turbulent years between the tail end of the Meiji era and Japan's postwar reconstruction. Called “the poet of Asakusa” for his delicate portrayals of the common people of his native Tokyo neighborhood, Kubota's dramas are essentially elegies to a way of life that even in the Taishō era was on its way out. Brief Night is typical of his plays—in a nutshell, it is the portrait of a pampered son (Isaburō) of a now deceased shopkeeper; the young man's poor judgment and taste for the bottle bring about the ruin of his house. The drama focuses on the negotiated breakup of Isaburō's marriage to Ofusa.
R. S. White and Ciara Rawnsley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719090783
- eISBN:
- 9781781708866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719090783.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The suggestive phrase ‘discrepant awareness’ was coined in 1960 by Bertrand Evans to explore the ways in which Shakespeare presents differences in knowledge and understanding between characters, and ...
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The suggestive phrase ‘discrepant awareness’ was coined in 1960 by Bertrand Evans to explore the ways in which Shakespeare presents differences in knowledge and understanding between characters, and between characters and audience, in order to build up irony and suspense, and to complicate plotting. This device, Evans suggests, is crucial to Shakespeare’s dramatic craftsmanship and a clue to the great range of theatrical effects he creates, respecting the multiplicity of perceptions that coexist and interact. However, while Evans shows how narrative complexity is enhanced by studying the limitations of what each individual knows or is ‘aware of’ at a particular moment he pays little attention to what each character is feeling. The argument advanced in this chapter is that the neglected notion of discrepant awareness can fruitfully be developed to include consideration of emotional fluctuations in each play, including passions (fixed obsessions), affects (humoral aspects in character creation), and emotions (fleeting situational responses). We explore emotional complexity of scenes for both characters and audiences, using scenes respectively from The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Cymbeline. It might be regarded as a distinctive hallmark of Shakespeare’s dramatic method in dealing with emotional complexity.Less
The suggestive phrase ‘discrepant awareness’ was coined in 1960 by Bertrand Evans to explore the ways in which Shakespeare presents differences in knowledge and understanding between characters, and between characters and audience, in order to build up irony and suspense, and to complicate plotting. This device, Evans suggests, is crucial to Shakespeare’s dramatic craftsmanship and a clue to the great range of theatrical effects he creates, respecting the multiplicity of perceptions that coexist and interact. However, while Evans shows how narrative complexity is enhanced by studying the limitations of what each individual knows or is ‘aware of’ at a particular moment he pays little attention to what each character is feeling. The argument advanced in this chapter is that the neglected notion of discrepant awareness can fruitfully be developed to include consideration of emotional fluctuations in each play, including passions (fixed obsessions), affects (humoral aspects in character creation), and emotions (fleeting situational responses). We explore emotional complexity of scenes for both characters and audiences, using scenes respectively from The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Cymbeline. It might be regarded as a distinctive hallmark of Shakespeare’s dramatic method in dealing with emotional complexity.
Claire Kenward
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- December 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198804215
- eISBN:
- 9780191842412
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804215.003.0029
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
In c.1537 Thersites made his entrance on the English stage, and declared himself as belonging to Homer at the start of a comic interlude that has typically been considered (like Thersites himself) as ...
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In c.1537 Thersites made his entrance on the English stage, and declared himself as belonging to Homer at the start of a comic interlude that has typically been considered (like Thersites himself) as travestying high epic into low, scurrilous entertainment. This chapter examines the intersection between staged versions of the character Thersites and the early modern period’s ongoing reception of Homer’s Iliad. Considering the Thersites interlude as representative of a broader cultural conception of Thersites, the chapter argues that a peculiarly English, and explicitly metatheatrical, Thersites emerges from a series of receptions-within-receptions, as Homer’s character was approached via refractions across a number of later classical texts. Moreover, when resurrected on the public stage in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (c.1602) and Thomas Heywood’s two-part drama The Iron Age (c.1611), this alternative, composite Thersites offers a significant commentary on the offstage reception of Homer’s epic text.Less
In c.1537 Thersites made his entrance on the English stage, and declared himself as belonging to Homer at the start of a comic interlude that has typically been considered (like Thersites himself) as travestying high epic into low, scurrilous entertainment. This chapter examines the intersection between staged versions of the character Thersites and the early modern period’s ongoing reception of Homer’s Iliad. Considering the Thersites interlude as representative of a broader cultural conception of Thersites, the chapter argues that a peculiarly English, and explicitly metatheatrical, Thersites emerges from a series of receptions-within-receptions, as Homer’s character was approached via refractions across a number of later classical texts. Moreover, when resurrected on the public stage in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (c.1602) and Thomas Heywood’s two-part drama The Iron Age (c.1611), this alternative, composite Thersites offers a significant commentary on the offstage reception of Homer’s epic text.
