Shakespeare and Material Culture

Shakespeare and Material Culture PDF Author: Catherine Richardson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199562288
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. What is the significance of Shylock's ring in The Merchant of Venice? How does Shakespeare create Gertrude's closet in Hamlet? How and why does Ariel prepare a banquet in The Tempest? In order to answer these and other questions, Shakespeare and Material Culture explores performance from the perspective of the material conditions of staging. In a period just starting to be touched by the allure of consumer culture, in which objects were central to the way gender and social status were experienced but also the subject of a palpable moral outrage, this book argues that material culture has a particularly complex and resonant role to play in Shakespeare's employment of his audience's imagination. Chapters address how props and costumes work within the drama's dense webs of language - how objects are invested with importance and how their worth is constructed through the narratives which surround them. They analyse how Shakespeare constructs rooms on the stage from the interrelation of props, the description of interior spaces and the dynamics between characters, and investigate the different kinds of early modern practices which could be staged - how the materiality of celebration, for instance, brings into play notions of hospitality and reciprocity. Shakespeare and Material Culture ends with a discussion of the way characters create unique languages by talking about things - languages of faerie, of madness, or of comedy - bringing into play objects and spaces which cannot be staged. Exploring things both seen and unseen, this book shows how the sheer variety of material cultures which Shakespeare brings onto the stage can shed fresh light on the relationship between the dynamics of drama and its reception and comprehension.

Shakespeare and Material Culture

Shakespeare and Material Culture PDF Author: Catherine Richardson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199562288
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book

Book Description
OXFORD SHAKESPEARE TOPICS General Editors: Peter Holland and Stanley Wells Oxford Shakespeare Topics provide students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. What is the significance of Shylock's ring in The Merchant of Venice? How does Shakespeare create Gertrude's closet in Hamlet? How and why does Ariel prepare a banquet in The Tempest? In order to answer these and other questions, Shakespeare and Material Culture explores performance from the perspective of the material conditions of staging. In a period just starting to be touched by the allure of consumer culture, in which objects were central to the way gender and social status were experienced but also the subject of a palpable moral outrage, this book argues that material culture has a particularly complex and resonant role to play in Shakespeare's employment of his audience's imagination. Chapters address how props and costumes work within the drama's dense webs of language - how objects are invested with importance and how their worth is constructed through the narratives which surround them. They analyse how Shakespeare constructs rooms on the stage from the interrelation of props, the description of interior spaces and the dynamics between characters, and investigate the different kinds of early modern practices which could be staged - how the materiality of celebration, for instance, brings into play notions of hospitality and reciprocity. Shakespeare and Material Culture ends with a discussion of the way characters create unique languages by talking about things - languages of faerie, of madness, or of comedy - bringing into play objects and spaces which cannot be staged. Exploring things both seen and unseen, this book shows how the sheer variety of material cultures which Shakespeare brings onto the stage can shed fresh light on the relationship between the dynamics of drama and its reception and comprehension.

Shakespeare and the Cultures of Performance

Shakespeare and the Cultures of Performance PDF Author: Paul Yachnin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317056493
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Theatrical performance, suggest the contributors to this volume, can be an unpredictable, individual experience as well as a communal, institutional or cultural event. The essays collected here use the tools of theatre history in their investigation into the phenomenology of the performance experience, yet they are also careful to consider the social, ideological and institutional contingencies that determine the production and reception of the living spectacle. Thus contributors combine a formalist interest in the affective and aesthetic dimensions of language and spectacle with an investment in the material cultures that both produced and received Shakespeare's plays. Six of the chapters focus on early modern cultures of performance, looking specifically at such topics as the performance of rusticity; the culture of credit; contract and performance; the cultivation of Englishness; religious ritual; and mourning and memory. Building upon and interrelating with the preceding essays, the last three chapters deal with Shakespeare and performance culture in modernity. They focus on themes including literary and theatrical performance anxiety; cultural iconicity; and the performance of Shakespearean lateness. This collection strives to bring better understanding to Shakespeare's imaginative investment in the relationship between theatrical production and the emotional, intellectual and cultural effects of performance broadly defined in social terms.

Humorality in Early Modern Art, Material Culture, and Performance

Humorality in Early Modern Art, Material Culture, and Performance PDF Author: Amy Kenny
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030776182
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Humorality in Early Modern Art, Material Culture, and Performance seeks to address the representation of the humors from non-traditional, abstract, and materialist perspectives, considering the humorality of everyday objects, activities, and performance within the early modern period. To uncover how humoralism shapes textual, material, and aesthetic encounters for contemporary subjects in a broader sense than previous studies have pursued, the project brings together three principal areas of investigation: how the humoral body was evoked and embodied within the space of the early modern stage; how the materiality of an object can be understood as constructed within humoral discourse; and how individuals’ activities and pursuits can connote specific practices informed by humoralism. Across the book, contributors explore how diverse media and cultural practices are informed by humoralism. As a whole, the collection investigates alternative humoralities in order to illuminate both early modern works of art as well as the cultural moments of their production.

Shakespeare and Modern Culture

Shakespeare and Modern Culture PDF Author: Marjorie Garber
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307390969
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
From one of the world's premier Shakespeare scholars comes a magisterial new study whose premise is "that Shakespeare makes modern culture and that modern culture makes Shakespeare." Shakespeare has determined many of the ideas that we think of as "naturally" true: ideas about human character, individuality and selfhood, government, leadership, love and jealousy, men and women, youth and age. Marjorie Garber delves into ten plays to explore the interrelationships between Shakespeare and contemporary culture, from James Joyce's Ulysses to George W. Bush's reading list. From the persistence of difference in Othello to the matter of character in Hamlet to the untimeliness of youth in Romeo and Juliet, Garber discusses how these ideas have been re-imagined in modern fiction, theater, film, and the news, and in the literature of psychology, sociology, political theory, business, medicine, and law. Shakespeare and Modern Culture is a brilliant recasting of our own mental and emotional landscape as refracted through the prism of the protean Shakespeare.

Culture and Society in Shakespeare's Day

Culture and Society in Shakespeare's Day PDF Author: Robert Evans
Publisher: Infobase Holdings, Inc
ISBN: 1646930061
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
An engaging, illustrated overview, Culture and Society in Shakespeare's Day gives valuable historical context to Shakespeare's works, explaining what daily life was like in the country, in the city, and among the nobility, since all of these settings feature prominently in his plays. Major events from the time period, including the exploration of the New World and the clashes between the British Navy and the Spanish Armada, add important perspective for students studying Shakespeare and his varied works. Coverage includes: Catholicism Rituals of birth, marriage, and death The universities Folklore, superstition, and witchcraft Puritanism Crime Plague Medicine The Spanish Armada Exploration of the New World The Gunpowder Plot And much more.

Shakespeare and Costume in Practice

Shakespeare and Costume in Practice PDF Author: Bridget Escolme
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030571491
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
What is the role of costume in Shakespeare production? Shakespeare and Costume in Practice argues that costume design choices are central not only to the creation of period setting and the actor’s work on character, but to the cultural, political, and psychological meanings that the theatre makes of Shakespeare. The book explores questions about what the first Hamlet looked like in his mourning cloak; how costumes for a Shakespeare comedy can reflect or critique the collective nostalgias a culture has for its past; how costume and casting work together to ask new questions about Shakespeare and race. Using production case studies of Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Tempest, the book demonstrates that costume design can be a site of experimentation, playfulness, and transgression in the theatre – and that it can provoke audiences to think again about what power, race, and gender look like on the Shakespearean stage.

Arden of Faversham

Arden of Faversham PDF Author: Catherine Richardson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474289312
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Based on the true story of the murder of Thomas Arden by his wife, her lover and accomplices in 1551, Arden of Faversham is one of the earliest domestic tragedies and a play which has continued to thrill audiences since its first staging. This comprehensive edition situates the play in its social, cultural and political context while exploring its performance and critical history through a range of historical and contemporary productions, including William Poel's Lilies That Fester (1897) and the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2014 production. Throughout, the edition aims to reanimate the play's engagement with the material culture of domestic life, using little-known evidence for the objects and spaces implicated in the murder. The introduction also accounts for recent new thinking about the play's likely authorship, including claims that Shakespeare was a key co-author. The comprehensive, illustrated introduction combined with detailed on-page commentary notes and glosses make this an ideal edition for students and teachers.

Shakespeare, Objects and Phenomenology

Shakespeare, Objects and Phenomenology PDF Author: Susan Sachon
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030052079
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This book explores ways in which Shakespeare’s writing strategies shape our embodied perception of objects – both real and imaginary – in four of his plays. Taking the reader on a series of perceptual journeys, it engages in an exciting dialogue between the disciplines of phenomenology, cognitive studies, historicist research and modern acting techniques, in order to probe our sentient and intuitive responses to Shakespeare’s language. What happens when we encounter objects on page and stage; and how we can imagine that impact in performance? What influences might have shaped the language that created them; and what do they reveal about our response to what we see and hear? By placing objects under the phenomenological lens, and scrutinising them as vital conduits between lived experience and language, this book illuminates Shakespeare’s writing as a rich source for investigation into the way we think, feel and communicate as embodied beings.

Impressive Shakespeare

Impressive Shakespeare PDF Author: Harry Newman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317118324
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Impressive Shakespeare reassesses Shakespeare’s relationship with "print culture" in light of his plays’ engagement with the language and material culture of three interrelated "impressing technologies": wax sealing, coining, and typographic printing. It analyses the material and rhetorical forms through which drama was thought to "imprint" early modern audiences and readers with ideas, morals and memories, and—looking to our own cultural moment—shows how Shakespeare has been historically constructed as an "impressive" dramatist. Through material readings of four plays—Coriolanus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure and The Winter’s Tale—Harry Newman argues that Shakespeare deploys the imprint as a self-reflexive trope in order to advertise the value of his plays to audiences and readers, and that in turn the language of impression has shaped, and continues to shape, Shakespeare’s critical afterlife. The book pushes the boundaries of what we understand by "print culture", and challenges assumptions about the emergence of concepts now central to Shakespeare’s perceived canonical value, such as penetrating characterisation, poetic transformation, and literary fatherhood. Harry Newman’s suggestive analysis of techniques and tropes of sealing, coining and printing produces a revelatory account of Shakespearean creative poetics. It’s sustainedly startling in its rereading of familiar lines - but the chapter I found most original is on Measure for Measure: Newman is the first critic to attempt to interpret the play’s authorial status as part of its own thematic and linguistic interrogation of illegitimacy and counterfeiting. He makes authorship matter in a literary and creative, rather than a quantitative and statistical, sense. Impressive Shakespeare is a brilliant scholarly debut. - Emma Smith Editor, Shakespeare Survey Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Hertford College, Oxford

Shakespeare and Memory

Shakespeare and Memory PDF Author: Hester Lees-Jeffries
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019165597X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Hamlet's father's Ghost asks his son to 'Remember me!', but how did people remember around 1600? And how do we remember now? Shakespeare and Memory brings together classical and early modern sources, theatre history, performance, material culture, and cognitive psychology and neuroscience in order to explore ideas about memory in Shakespeare's plays and poems. It argues that, when Shakespeare was writing, ideas about memory were undergoing a kind of crisis, as both the technologies of memory (print, the theatre itself) and the belief structures underpinning ideas about memory underwent rapid change. And it suggests that this crisis might be mirrored in our own time, when, despite all the increasing gadgetry at our disposal, memory can still be recovered, falsified, corrupted, or wiped: only we ourselves can remember, but the workings of memory remain mysterious. Shakespeare and Memory draws on works from all stages of Shakespeare's career, with a particular focus on Hamlet, the Sonnets, Twelfth Night, and The Winter's Tale. It considers some little things: what's Hamlet writing on? And why does Orsino think he smells violets? And it asks some big questions: how should the dead be remembered? What's the relationship between memory and identity? And is it art, above all, that enables love and beauty, memory and identity, to endure in the face of loss, time, and death?