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Late Tudor and Stuart Drama: Gender, Performance and Material Culture
New Directions in Early Modern English Drama: Edges, Spaces, Intersections
On the Edge in Early Modern English Drama examines some of the people, places, and plays at the edge of early modern English drama. Recently, scholarship has begun to think about the edge - particularly in relation to the canon and canonicity. This book demonstrates the people and concepts long seen as on the edge of early modern English drama made vital contributions both within the fictive worlds of early modern plays, and without, in the real worlds of playmakers, theatres, and audiences.
The collection engages with topics such as child actors, alterity, sexuality, foreignness, and locality to acknowledge and extend the rich sense of playmaking and all its ancillary activities that has emerged over the last decade.
These essays by a global team of scholars bring to life people and practices that flourished on the edge, manifesting their importance to both early modern audiences, and to current readers and performers.
The collection engages with topics such as child actors, alterity, sexuality, foreignness, and locality to acknowledge and extend the rich sense of playmaking and all its ancillary activities that has emerged over the last decade.
These essays by a global team of scholars bring to life people and practices that flourished on the edge, manifesting their importance to both early modern audiences, and to current readers and performers.
283 pages, Hardcover
Published July 6, 2020
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November 26, 2019
Alright, I know that this book is due out next year and it looks like time travel to have read it so early, but unfortunately such is not the case. The far less interesting explanation is that I've been assisting with the copy-editing, and I finally finished reading the last chapter today.
And you know what, I was genuinely interested. I don't have a background in early modern drama. If asked about such I would vaguely handwave and say, "Um, Shakespeare?" but there's more than that, and I was happy to read about it. The editors are looking to broaden perspectives on the subject, to investigate the ways in which early modern drama explores borderlines and crossing places, points of tension when separate worlds (or disciplines) rub up against each other. Let me give an example. Possibly the most interesting chapter in the book, by Sophie Emma Battell, looked at how language was used differently by Christian and Muslim characters in the 1630 play Renegado, by Philip Massinger... and how the playwright exploited that difference to appeal to his own (admittedly prejudiced) audience. Another super interesting chapter, this time by Aidan Norrie, looked at how child actors were used as mouthpieces to speak truth to power - a strategy which relied on them being able to get away with it because they were young and cute, essentially.
Other chapters looked at things as diverse as evolving maps and disappearing playhouses, sleep disorders and ghosts, and how actors used social networking to support themselves through financial drought. As I said, I don't have a background in this. It was all very new to me, but for the most part it was written extremely clearly, presumably so that people who aren't experts can access material written by people who are. Which is in itself a navigation of borders and treacherous places...
And you know what, I was genuinely interested. I don't have a background in early modern drama. If asked about such I would vaguely handwave and say, "Um, Shakespeare?" but there's more than that, and I was happy to read about it. The editors are looking to broaden perspectives on the subject, to investigate the ways in which early modern drama explores borderlines and crossing places, points of tension when separate worlds (or disciplines) rub up against each other. Let me give an example. Possibly the most interesting chapter in the book, by Sophie Emma Battell, looked at how language was used differently by Christian and Muslim characters in the 1630 play Renegado, by Philip Massinger... and how the playwright exploited that difference to appeal to his own (admittedly prejudiced) audience. Another super interesting chapter, this time by Aidan Norrie, looked at how child actors were used as mouthpieces to speak truth to power - a strategy which relied on them being able to get away with it because they were young and cute, essentially.
Other chapters looked at things as diverse as evolving maps and disappearing playhouses, sleep disorders and ghosts, and how actors used social networking to support themselves through financial drought. As I said, I don't have a background in this. It was all very new to me, but for the most part it was written extremely clearly, presumably so that people who aren't experts can access material written by people who are. Which is in itself a navigation of borders and treacherous places...
Displaying 1 of 1 review