Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe

Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Asst Prof Verena Theile
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409474305
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
Engaging with fiction and history-and reading both genres as texts permeated with early modern anxieties, desires, and apprehensions-this collection scrutinizes the historical intersection of early modern European superstitions and English stage literature. Contributors analyze the cultural mechanisms that shape, preserve, and transmit beliefs. They investigate where superstitions come from and how they are sustained and communicated within early modern European society. It has been proposed by scholars that once enacted on stage and thus brought into contact with the literary-dramatic perspective, belief systems that had been preserved and reinforced by historical-literary texts underwent a drastic change. By highlighting the connection between historical-literary and literary-dramatic culture, this volume tests and explores the theory that performance of superstitions opened the way to disbelief.

Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe

Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Andrew D. McCarthy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317050673
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Engaging with fiction and history-and reading both genres as texts permeated with early modern anxieties, desires, and apprehensions-this collection scrutinizes the historical intersection of early modern European superstitions and English stage literature. Contributors analyze the cultural mechanisms that shape, preserve, and transmit beliefs. They investigate where superstitions come from and how they are sustained and communicated within early modern European society. It has been proposed by scholars that once enacted on stage and thus brought into contact with the literary-dramatic perspective, belief systems that had been preserved and reinforced by historical-literary texts underwent a drastic change. By highlighting the connection between historical-literary and literary-dramatic culture, this volume tests and explores the theory that performance of superstitions opened the way to disbelief.

Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe

Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781315610559
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description


Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe

Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Verena Theile
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description


Superstition and Magic in Early Modern Europe: A Reader

Superstition and Magic in Early Modern Europe: A Reader PDF Author: Helen Parish
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441168761
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
A diverse collection of the most important recent scholarship on witchcraft, magic and religion.

Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe

Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Andrew D. McCarthy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317050681
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Engaging with fiction and history-and reading both genres as texts permeated with early modern anxieties, desires, and apprehensions-this collection scrutinizes the historical intersection of early modern European superstitions and English stage literature. Contributors analyze the cultural mechanisms that shape, preserve, and transmit beliefs. They investigate where superstitions come from and how they are sustained and communicated within early modern European society. It has been proposed by scholars that once enacted on stage and thus brought into contact with the literary-dramatic perspective, belief systems that had been preserved and reinforced by historical-literary texts underwent a drastic change. By highlighting the connection between historical-literary and literary-dramatic culture, this volume tests and explores the theory that performance of superstitions opened the way to disbelief.

Witch Hunts and State Building in Early Modern Europe

Witch Hunts and State Building in Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Linnea de Gouges
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781723896156
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
The formidable witch hunts in Early Modern Europe (ca. 1500-1700) have been subject to a vast number of studies and speculations regarding their causes. In this book, they are connected with the increasingly authoritarian state apparatuses which were being consolidated during the actual time period, and explained as efforts by the state and church authorities to divide and conquer rebellious peasant populations. In the early 16th century, the German peasant war shook the foundations of the emerging German states and their aristocratic and clerical leaders, threatening to abort the development of centralized states in Europe and supplant them with confederal sociopolitical structures. The witch hunts in the subsequent two centuries are explained as a decisive campaign to put an end to the rebellious and often times revolutionary peasants, a campaign which succeeded to an increasing extent through new scientific discoveries and the development of vast military resources in the hands of the Early Modern States. With the new enlightened ideas in the late 17th and 18th century, the mania for hunting down witches faded into history, as the centralized European states consolidated their hegemony. This book will be of great relevance for the student of Early Modern history, as well as for the general reader who takes an interest in the massive persecution of Europe's "outsiders" in an era when superstition was rampant and people were easily scared by religious propaganda in the form of the "Devil threat."

Unbelief in early modern Europe

Unbelief in early modern Europe PDF Author: David Wootton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe

The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Brian P. Levack
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage

Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage PDF Author: Lisa Hopkins
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317102754
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Magical Transformations on the Early Modern Stage furthers the debate about the cultural work performed by representations of magic on the early modern English stage. It considers the ways in which performances of magic reflect and feed into a sense of national identity, both in the form of magic contests and in its recurrent linkage to national defence; the extent to which magic can trope other concerns, and what these might be; and how magic is staged and what the representational strategies and techniques might mean. The essays range widely over both canonical plays-Macbeth, The Tempest, The Winter’s Tale, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Doctor Faustus, Bartholomew Fair-and notably less canonical ones such as The Birth of Merlin, Fedele and Fortunio, The Merry Devil of Edmonton, The Devil is an Ass, The Late Lancashire Witches and The Witch of Edmonton, putting the two groups into dialogue with each other and also exploring ways in which they can be profitably related to contemporary cases or accusations of witchcraft. Attending to the representational strategies and self-conscious intertextuality of the plays as well as to their treatment of their subject matter, the essays reveal the plays they discuss as actively intervening in contemporary debates about witchcraft and magic in ways which themselves effect transformation rather than simply discussing it. At the heart of all the essays lies an interest in the transformative power of magic, but collectively they show that the idea of transformation applies not only to the objects or even to the subjects of magic, but that the plays themselves can be seen as working to bring about change in the ways that they challenge contemporary assumptions and stereotypes.

Kingship, Madness, and Masculinity on the Early Modern Stage

Kingship, Madness, and Masculinity on the Early Modern Stage PDF Author: Christina Gutierrez-Dennehy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000461963
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Kingship, Madness, and Masculinity examines representations of mad kings in early modern English theatrical texts and performance practices. Although there have been numerous volumes examining the medical and social dimensions of mental illness in the early modern period, and a few that have examined stage representations of such conditions, this volume is unique in its focus on the relationships between madness, kingship, and the anxiety of lost or fragile masculinity. The chapters uncover how, as the early modern understanding of mental illness refocused on human, rather than supernatural, causes, public stages became important arenas for playwrights, actors, and audiences to explore expressions of madness and to practice diagnoses. Throughout the volume, the authors engage with the field of disability studies to show how disability and mental health were portrayed on stage and what those representations reveal about the period and the people who lived in it. Altogether, the essays question what happens when theatrical expressions of madness are mapped onto the bodies of actors playing kings, and how the threat of diminished masculinity affects representations of power. This volume is the ideal resource for students and scholars interested in the history of kingship, gender, and politics in early modern drama.