Ceremony and Text in the Renaissance

Ceremony and Text in the Renaissance PDF Author: Douglas F. Rutledge
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874135732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ceremony and Text in the Renaissance is a contribution to the history of cultural semiotics in Early Modern Europe. Prof. Thomas M. Greene's theoretical exposition introduces a series of articles that consider the interaction between literary production and ceremonial performance in the larger cultural text of the Renaissance. The Renaissance engaged in a greater number of ceremonial performances than the preceding era, but the Reformation had irrevocably altered the language of ceremony, reducing its magical efficacity and diminishing its ability to inspire community. According to Professor Greene, the essays address one large but limited area of semiotic practice, the social role of ceremonial performance during the early modern period, examining the interplay between ceremonial and the narrative, dramatic, or poetic text.

Ceremony and Text in the Renaissance

Ceremony and Text in the Renaissance PDF Author: Douglas F. Rutledge
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874135732
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ceremony and Text in the Renaissance is a contribution to the history of cultural semiotics in Early Modern Europe. Prof. Thomas M. Greene's theoretical exposition introduces a series of articles that consider the interaction between literary production and ceremonial performance in the larger cultural text of the Renaissance. The Renaissance engaged in a greater number of ceremonial performances than the preceding era, but the Reformation had irrevocably altered the language of ceremony, reducing its magical efficacity and diminishing its ability to inspire community. According to Professor Greene, the essays address one large but limited area of semiotic practice, the social role of ceremonial performance during the early modern period, examining the interplay between ceremonial and the narrative, dramatic, or poetic text.

A Renaissance Wedding

A Renaissance Wedding PDF Author: Jane Bridgeman
Publisher: Harvey Miller
ISBN: 9781905375936
Category : Festivals
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This publication is the first English translation from the Italian of the fascinating contemporary account of the spectacular four-day celebrations that took place in Pesaro in May 1475 to mark the marriage of Costanzo Sforza Lord of Pesaro and Camilla d'Aragona of Naples. The event was commemorated both in manuscript and early print in an anonymous narration that describes in great detail the arrival of the bride and her welcome procession into Pesaro; the actual marriage ceremony and the celebratory banquet that followed; the pageants, presentation of gifts and fireworks that filled the third day; and the final day's excitement of jousts and yet more theatrical entertainment. The translation has been made from the early printed text (the incunable in the British Library, I.A.31753 Sforza, Costantio Signore di Pesaro, 1475) and also directly from the unique illustrated presentation manuscript in the Vatican Library (MS Vat. Urb. Lat. 899) which, though previously thought to have been produced in 1480, may in fact have been made at the same time as the incunable edition. It is not known for whom the printed books were intended (7 copies only survive), but it is likely that the prominent dignitaries among the 108 guests - who included Federico da Montefeltro, the groom's brother-in-law - would have been the recipients of the account when it was printed in November 1475.This present edition of the text includes all the images that illustrate the original manuscript - 32 full-page miniatures that depict the floats that welcomed the bride at the city gates of Pesaro; the costumed figures at the wedding banquet who represented the presiding Sun and Moon or the male and female messengers of the classical gods and goddesses who announcedthe exotic dishes of the 12-course banquet; and further colourful, unusually interesting illustrations of the ballets, fireworks and triumphs of the final two days of the celebrations. In addition to the Introduction that provides the reader with the historical background and biographical details of the protagonists and personalities of this special occasion, Dr. Bridgeman also adds helpful and highly informative annotations to the narration itself. In addition she provides full descriptions and explanations of the illustrations - all reproduced here in colour - and devotes a separate appendix to listing and explaining all the dishes served at the wedding banquet, together with their ingredients and recipes.

The Language of Space in Court Performance, 1400-1625

The Language of Space in Court Performance, 1400-1625 PDF Author: Janette Dillon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521886414
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Get Book Here

Book Description
Using a set of detailed case studies, this book analyses medieval and early modern court culture as inherently performative.

Plotting Early Modern London

Plotting Early Modern London PDF Author: Dieter Mehl
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351910698
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
With the publication of Brian Gibbons's Jacobean City Comedy thirty-five years ago, the urban satires by Ben Jonson, John Marston and Thomas Middleton attained their 'official status as a Renaissance subgenre' that was distinct, by its farcical humour and ironic tone, from 'citizen comedy' or 'London drama' more generally. This retrospective genre-building has proved immensely fruitful in the study of early modern English drama; and although city comedies may not yet rival Shakespeare's plays in the amount of editorial work and critical acclaim they receive, both the theatrical contexts and the dramatic complexity of the genre itself, and its interrelations with Shakespearean drama justly command an increasing level of attention. Looking at a broad range of plays written between the 1590s and the 1630s - master-pieces of the genre like Eastward Ho, A Trick to Catch the Old One, The Dutch Courtesan and The Devil is an Ass, blends of romance and satire like The Shoemaker's Holiday and The Knight of the Burning Pestle, and bourgeois oddities in the Shakespearean manner like The London Prodigal - the twelve essays in this volume re-examine city comedy in the light of recently foregrounded historical contexts such as early modern capitalism, urban culture, the Protestant Reformation, and playhouse politics. Further, they explore the interrelations between city comedy and Shakespearean comedy both from the perspective of author rivalry and in terms of modern adaptations: the twenty-first-century concept of 'popular Shakespeare' (above all in the movie sector) seems to realign the comparatively time- and placeless Shakespearean drama with the gritty, noisy and bustling urban scene that has been city comedy's traditional preserve.

Transnational Mobilities in Early Modern Theater

Transnational Mobilities in Early Modern Theater PDF Author: Robert Henke
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317006755
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book Here

Book Description
The essays in this volume investigate English, Italian, Spanish, German, Czech, and Bengali early modern theater, placing Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the theatrical contexts of western and central Europe, as well as the Indian sub-continent. Contributors explore the mobility of theatrical units, genres, performance practices, visual images, and dramatic texts across geo-linguistic borders in early modern Europe. Combining 'distant' and 'close' reading, a systemic and structural approach identifies common theatrical units, or 'theatergrams' as departure points for specifying the particular translations of theatrical cultures across national boundaries. The essays engage both 'dramatic' approaches (e.g., genre, plot, action, and the dramatic text) and 'theatrical' perspectives (e.g., costume, the body and gender of the actor). Following recent work in 'mobility studies,' mobility is examined from both material and symbolic angles, revealing both ample transnational movement and periodic resistance to border-crossing. Four final essays attend to the practical and theoretical dimensions of theatrical translation and adaptation, and contribute to the book’s overall inquiry into the ways in which values, properties, and identities are lost, transformed, or gained in movement across geo-linguistic borders.

Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I PDF Author: Carole Levin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351940996
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
This interdisciplinary collection by historians, cultural critics and literary scholars examines a variety of the political, social, and cultural forces at work during the English Renaissance and beyond, forces that contributed to creating a wealth of artistic, literary and historical impressions of Elizabeth, her court, and the time period named after her, the Elizabethan age. Articles in the collection discuss Elizabeths' relationships, investigate the advice given her, explore connections between her court and the arts, and consider the role of Elizabeth's court in the political life of the nation. Some of the ways Elizabeth was understood and represented demonstrate society's fears and ambivalence about early modern women in power, while others celebrate her successes as England's first and only unmarried queen regnant. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students in a wide range of disciplines, including literary, cultural, historical and women's studies, as well as those interested in the life and times of Elizabeth I.

Italian Culture in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

Italian Culture in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries PDF Author: Michele Marrapodi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351925849
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 491

Get Book Here

Book Description
Applying recent developments in new historicism and cultural materialism - along with the new perspectives opened up by the current debate on intertextuality and the construction of the theatrical text - the essays collected here reconsider the pervasive influence of Italian culture, literature, and traditions on early modern English drama. The volume focuses strongly on Shakespeare but also includes contributions on Marston, Middleton, Ford, Brome, Aretino, and other early modern dramatists. The pervasive influence of Italian culture, literature, and traditions on the European Renaissance, it is argued here, offers a valuable opportunity to study the intertextual dynamics that contributed to the construction of the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatrical canon. In the specific area of theatrical discourse, the drama of the early modern period is characterized by the systematic appropriation of a complex Italian iconology, exploited both as the origin of poetry and art and as the site of intrigue, vice, and political corruption. Focusing on the construction and the political implications of the dramatic text, this collection analyses early modern English drama within the context of three categories of cultural and ideological appropriation: the rewriting, remaking, and refashioning of the English theatrical tradition in its iconic, thematic, historical, and literary aspects.

The Fetters of Rhyme

The Fetters of Rhyme PDF Author: Rebecca M. Rush
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069121784X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
How rhyme became entangled with debates about the nature of liberty in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English poetry In his 1668 preface to Paradise Lost, John Milton rejected the use of rhyme, portraying himself as a revolutionary freeing English verse from “the troublesome and modern bondage of Riming.” Despite his claim to be a pioneer, Milton was not initiating a new line of thought—English poets had been debating about rhyme and its connections to liberty, freedom, and constraint since Queen Elizabeth’s reign. The Fetters of Rhyme traces this dynamic history of rhyme from the 1590s through the 1670s. Rebecca Rush uncovers the surprising associations early modern readers attached to rhyming forms like couplets and sonnets, and she shows how reading poetic form from a historical perspective yields fresh insights into verse’s complexities. Rush explores how early modern poets imagined rhyme as a band or fetter, comparing it to the bonds linking individuals to political, social, and religious communities. She considers how Edmund Spenser’s sonnet rhymes stood as emblems of voluntary confinement, how John Donne’s revival of the Chaucerian couplet signaled sexual and political radicalism, and how Ben Jonson’s verse charted a middle way between licentious Elizabethan couplet poets and slavish sonneteers. Rush then looks at why the royalist poets embraced the prerational charms of rhyme, and how Milton spent his career reckoning with rhyme’s allures. Examining a poetic feature that sits between sound and sense, liberty and measure, The Fetters of Rhyme elucidates early modern efforts to negotiate these forces in verse making and reading.

Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture, 1420-1600

Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture, 1420-1600 PDF Author: Victor Coelho
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107145805
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is the first in-depth study in any language exploring the vast cultural range of instrumental music during the Renaissance.

The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I

The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I PDF Author: Jayne Elisabeth Archer
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191608793
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 1461

Get Book Here

Book Description
More than any other English monarch before or since, Queen Elizabeth I used her annual progresses to shape her royal persona and to bolster her popularity and authority. During the spring and summer, accompanied by her court, Elizabeth toured southern England, the Midlands, and parts of the West Country, staying with private and civic hosts, and at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The progresses provided hosts with unique opportunities to impress and influence the Queen, and became occasions for magnificent and ingenious entertainments and pageants, drawing on the skills of architects, artists, and craftsmen, as well as dramatic performances, formal orations, poetic recitations, parades, masques, dances, and bear baiting. The Progresses, Pageants, and Entertainments of Queen Elizabeth I is an interdisciplinary essay collection, drawing together new and innovative work by experts in literary studies, history, theatre and performance studies, art history, and antiquarian studies. As such, it will make a unique and timely contribution to research on the culture and history of Elizabethan England. Chapters include examinations of some of the principal Elizabethan progress entertainments, including the coronation pageant Veritas temporis filia (1559), Kenilworth (1575), Norwich (1578), Cowdray (1591), Bisham (1592), and Harefield (1602), while other chapters consider the themes raised by these events, including the ritual of gift-giving; the conduct of government whilst on progress; the significance of the visual arts in the entertainments; regional identity and militarism; elite and learned women as hosts; the circulation and publication of entertainment and pageant texts; the afterlife of the Elizabethan progresses, including their reappropriation in Caroline England and the documenting of Elizabeth's reign by late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century antiquarians such as John Nichols, who went on to compile the monumentalThe Progresses of Queen Elizabeth (1788-1823).