Early modern theatre and the figure of disability / Genevieve Love.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Love, Genevieve, author.

Series:

Arden studies in early modern drama

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600--History and criticism.

English drama.

People with disabilities in literature.

People with disabilities and the performing arts.

Human body in literature.

Theater--Great Britain--History.

Theater.

Great Britain.

History.

English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

x, 212 pages ; 21 cm.

Other Title:

Early modern theater and the figure of disability

Place of Publication:

London, UK ; New York, NY : The Arden Shakespeare, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2019.

Summary:

"What work did physically disabled characters do for the early modern theatre? Through a consideration of a range of plays, including Doctor Faustus and Richard III, Genevieve Love argues that the figure of the physically disabled prosthetic body in early modern English theatre mediates a set of related 'likeness problems' that structure the theatrical, textual, and critical lives of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The figure of disability stands for the relationship between actor and character: prosthetic disabled characters with names such as Cripple and Stump capture the simultaneous presence of the fictional and the material, embodied world of the theatre. When the figure of the disabled body exits the stage, it also mediates a second problem of likeness, between plays in their performed and textual forms. While supposedly imperfect textual versions of plays have been characterized as 'lame', the dynamic movement of prosthetic disabled characters in the theatre expands the figural role which disability performs in the relationship between plays on the stage and on the page. Early Modern Theatre and the Figure of Disability reveals how attention to physical disability enriches our understanding of early modern ideas about how theatre works, while illuminating in turn how theatre offers a reframing of disability as metaphor"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: disability and/as theatricality

The work of standing and of standing-for: disability, movement, theatrical personation in The fair maid of the exchange

The sound of prosthetic movement: transnational and temporal analogy in A larum for London

"Faustus has his legge again": truncation and prosthesis, theatricality and bibliography in Doctor Faustus

Richard's "giddy footing": degree of difference and cyclical movement in Shakespeare's Richard III.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 194-207) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Love, Genevieve, author. Early modern theatre and the figure of disability

ISBN:

9781350017207

1350017205

OCLC:

1020275665