Drama and Religion in English Provincial Society, 1485-1660

Drama and Religion in English Provincial Society, 1485-1660 PDF Author: Paul Whitfield White
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521856698
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This book examines theatre and religion in provincial England from the early Tudors to 1660.

Drama and Religion in English Provincial Society, 1485-1660

Drama and Religion in English Provincial Society, 1485-1660 PDF Author: Paul Whitfield White
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521856698
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This book examines theatre and religion in provincial England from the early Tudors to 1660.

Religion and Drama in Early Modern England

Religion and Drama in Early Modern England PDF Author: Elizabeth Williamson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317068114
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Offering fuller understandings of both dramatic representations and the complexities of religious culture, this collection reveals the ways in which religion and performance were inextricably linked in early modern England. Its readings extend beyond the interpretation of straightforward religious allusions and suggest new avenues for theorizing the dynamic relationship between religious representations and dramatic ones. By addressing the particular ways in which commercial drama adapted the sensory aspects of religious experience to its own symbolic systems, the volume enacts a methodological shift towards a more nuanced semiotics of theatrical performance. Covering plays by a wide range of dramatists, including Shakespeare, individual essays explore the material conditions of performance, the intricate resonances between dramatic performance and religious ceremonies, and the multiple valences of religious references in early modern plays. Additionally, Religion and Drama in Early Modern England reveals the theater's broad interpretation of post-Reformation Christian practice, as well as its engagement with the religions of Islam, Judaism and paganism.

Shakespeare and Costume

Shakespeare and Costume PDF Author: Patricia Lennox
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472532503
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Inspired by new approaches in performance studies, theatre history, research in material culture and dress history, a rich discussion of the many aspects of costume in Shakespearean performance has begun. Shakespeare and Costume furthers this research, bringing together varied and stimulating essays by leading scholars that consider costume from literary, dramatic, design, performative and theatrical perspectives, as well as interviews with renowned theatre practitioners Jane Greenwood and Robert Morgan. The volume amply demonstrates how an analysis of the meaning of costume enriches our understanding of Shakespeare's plays. Beginning with an overview of the stage history of Shakespeare and costume, the volume looks at the historical context of clothing in the plays, considering topics such as royal self-fashioning, festive livery practices, and conceptions of race and gender exhibited in clothing choice, as well as costume in performance. Drawing on documentary evidence in designers' renderings, illustrations in periodicals, paintings, photographs, newspaper reviews and actors' memoirs, the volume also explores costume designs in specific Shakespeare productions from the re-opening of the London theatres in 1660 to the present day.

The Chester Cycle in Context, 1555-1575

The Chester Cycle in Context, 1555-1575 PDF Author: Jessica Dell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317038673
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
The Chester Cycle in Context, 1555-1575 considers the implications of recent archival research which has profoundly changed our view of the continuation of performances of Chester's civic biblical play cycle into the reign of Elizabeth I. Scholars now view the decline and ultimate abandonment of civic religious drama as the result of a complex network of local pressures, heavily dependent upon individual civic and ecclesiastical authorities, rather than a result of a nation-wide policy of suppression, as had previously been assumed.

Historians on Robin Hood

Historians on Robin Hood PDF Author: Stephen H. Rigby
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843846691
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
Offers a comprehensive thematic introduction to a wide range of medieval writings about the outlaw-hero from a series of different historical perspectives. By the fifteenth century, churchmen were complaining that laypeople preferred to hear stories about Robin Hood rather than to listen to the word of God. But what was the attraction of this outlaw for contemporary audiences? The essays collected here seek to examine the outlaw's legend in relation to late medieval society, politics and piety. They set out the different types of evidence which give us access to representations of Robin and his men in the pre-Reformation period, ask whether stories about the outlaw had any basis in reality and explore the many different purposes for which his legend was adapted. The volume is divided into six parts: the sources for the medieval legend of Robin Hood and its origins; social structure; social conflict; kingship, law and warfare; piety and the church; and the outlaw's legend in Wales and Scotland. Key issues addressed by its essays include the dating of the surviving tales, attitudes to social hierarchy, representations of gender and masculinity, the extent to which the tales drew upon or shaped contemporary attitudes towards law and justice, the development of Robin Hood plays and games, and whether the legend emerged from or appealed to particular social groups. It not only sheds new light on a character who, whether "real" or not, is one of the most important and memorable figures in the history of medieval England but also explores the extent to which the outlaw became popular in Scotland and Wales.

Shakespeare's Medieval Craft

Shakespeare's Medieval Craft PDF Author: Kurt A. Schreyer
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801455103
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
In Shakespeare’s Medieval Craft, Kurt A. Schreyer explores the relationship between Shakespeare’s plays and a tradition of late medieval English biblical drama known as mystery plays. Scholars of English theater have long debated Shakespeare’s connection to the mystery play tradition, but Schreyer provides new perspective on the subject by focusing on the Chester Banns, a sixteenth-century proclamation announcing the annual performance of that city’s cycle of mystery plays. Through close study of the Banns, Schreyer demonstrates the central importance of medieval stage objects—as vital and direct agents and not merely as precursors—to the Shakespearean stage. As Schreyer shows, the Chester Banns serve as a paradigm for how Shakespeare’s theater might have reflected on and incorporated the mystery play tradition, yet distinguished itself from it. For instance, he demonstrates that certain material features of Shakespeare’s stage—including the ass’s head of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the theatrical space of Purgatory in Hamlet, and the knocking at the gate in the Porter scene of Macbeth—were in fact remnants of the earlier mysteries transformed to meet the exigencies of the commercial London playhouses. Schreyer argues that the ongoing agency of supposedly superseded theatrical objects and practices reveal how the mystery plays shaped dramatic production long after their demise. At the same time, these medieval traditions help to reposition Shakespeare as more than a writer of plays; he was a play-wright, a dramatic artisan who forged new theatrical works by fitting poetry to the material remnants of an older dramatic tradition.

Lost Plays in Shakespeare's England

Lost Plays in Shakespeare's England PDF Author: D. McInnis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137403977
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Lost Plays in Shakespeare's England examines assumptions about what a lost play is and how it can be talked about; how lost plays can be reconstructed, particularly when they use narratives already familiar to playgoers; and how lost plays can force us to reassess extant plays, particularly through ideas of repertory studies.

Reformations of the Body

Reformations of the Body PDF Author: J. Waldron
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137313129
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
This project takes the human body and the bodily senses as joints that articulate new kinds of connections between church and theatre and overturns a longstanding notion about theatrical phenomenology in this period.

Jesuit Intellectual and Physical Exchange between England and Mainland Europe, c. 1580–1789

Jesuit Intellectual and Physical Exchange between England and Mainland Europe, c. 1580–1789 PDF Author: James E. Kelly
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004362665
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Jesuit Intellectual and Physical Exchange between England and Mainland Europe, c. 1580–1789: ‘The World is our House’? offers new perspectives on the English Mission of the Society of Jesus. It brings together an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars to explore the Mission’s role and wider impact within the Society, as well as early modern European Catholicism. Building on recent movements within the field to decentralise the Catholic Reformation, the volume seeks to change perceptions of the English Mission as peripheral, bringing the archipelagic experience of Jesuits working in the British Isles in line with work on their European confreres and the broader global network of the Society of Jesus.

Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England

Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England PDF Author: R. Loughnane
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137349352
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 485

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Book Description
Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England is a groundbreaking collection of seventeen essays, drawing together leading and emerging scholars to discuss and challenge critical assumptions about the transgressive nature of the early modern English stage. These essays shed new light on issues of gender, race, sexuality, law and politics. Staged Transgression was followed by a companion collection, Staged Normality in Shakespeare's England (2019), also available from Palgrave: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-00892-5