How the world became a stage : presence, theatricality, and the question of modernity / William Egginton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Egginton, William, 1969-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Theater--Europe--History--16th century.

Theater.

Theater--Europe--History--17th century.

Theater and society--Europe--History--16th century.

Theater and society.

Theater and society--Europe--History--17th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (217 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

What is special, distinct, modern about modernity? In How the World Became a Stage, William Egginton argues that the experience of modernity is fundamentally spatial rather than subjective and proposes replacing the vocabulary of subjectivity with the concepts of presence and theatricality. Following a Heideggerian injunctive to search for the roots of epochal change not in philosophies so much as in basic skills and practices, he describes the spatiality of modernity on the basis of a close historical analysis of the practices of spectacle from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period, paying particular attention to stage practices in France and Spain. He recounts how the space in which the world is disclosed changed from the full, magically charged space of presence to the empty, fungible, and theatrical space of the stage.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Legend of Saint Genesius

Actors, Agents, and Avatars

Real Presence, Sympathetic Magic, and the Power of Gesture

Saint Genesius on the Stage of the World

A Tale of Two Cities: The Evolution of Renaissance Stage Practices in Madrid and Paris

Theatricality versus Subjectivity

Epilogue: A Future without Screens?

Notes

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780791487716

0791487717

9781417535996

1417535997

OCLC:

61367768