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Discoveries on the early modern stage : contexts and conventions / Leslie Thomson.
Kislak Center for Special Collections - Furness Shakespeare Library (Van Pelt 628) PN56.D57 T46 2018
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Thomson, Leslie (Drama professor), author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Disguise in literature.
- English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600--History and criticism.
- English drama.
- English drama--17th century--History and criticism.
- English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan.
- Genre:
- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Physical Description:
- xi, 265 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2018.
- Summary:
- "This is a study of the dramatic use, treatment, and staging of performed 'discoveries' - actions which the theatre is uniquely able to exploit visually and explore verbally. The motif of discovery - in the now almost obsolete sense of uncovering or disclosing - is prominent in the language and action of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline plays. Visual discoveries are used repeatedly through the period by virtually every playwright, regardless of company or venue. These discoveries are of two different but related kinds: the disguise discovery - the removal of a disguise to uncover identity; and the discovery scene - the opening of curtains or doors to reveal a place or the removal of a lid or cover to effect a disclosure. This is the first analysis of staged discoveries as such; in it I show how and why these actions are essential to the way a play dramatizes and explores such interrelated matters as deception, privacy, secrecy, and truth; knowledge, justice, and renewal"-- Provided by publisher.
- Contents:
- Kinds and uses
- Time and truth
- Religious rites and secular spectacle
- Revelation and belief
- Private places and hidden spaces
- Invention and artifice.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.
- ISBN:
- 9781108494472
- 1108494471
- OCLC:
- 1028187740
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