Automata and mimesis on the stage of theatre history / Kara Reilly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Reilly, Kara.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Drama--History and criticism.

Drama.

Theater--History.

Theater.

History.

Robots in literature.

Mimesis in literature.

Motion in literature.

Physical Description:

xi, 220 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Summary:

This book explores automata or early robots as performers on the stage of theatre history. Automata are precursors to our digital culture, demonstrating that our spectacular culture of machine-based entertainments has numerous historical precedents. Automata are surprisingly saturated with intellectual and cultural history. Chapters examine topics like English Reformation Iconoclasm's fear that art might surpass God's nature in Elizabethan moving statues, the influence that hydraulic garden automata had on Descartes's mechanical philosophy; automata as ideal objects of the aristocracy in eighteenth-century Europe; theatrical productions focused on that alluring automaton Olylmpia; and a case study of RUR, the drama that coined the word 'Robot'. At its heart, this study examines automata as both performative objects of mimesis and metaphors for the period in which they are explored. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

Iconoclasm and automata

Descartes' mimetic faculty

From artistocrats to autocrats: the elite as automata

Olympia's Legacy

From automata to automation: the birth of the robot in R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780230232020

0230232027

OCLC:

721883991