Entertaining uncertainty in the early modern theater : stage spectacle and audience response / Lauren Robertson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Robertson, Lauren (College teacher), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English drama.

Theater audiences--England--History--16th century.

Theater audiences.

English drama--17th century--History and criticism.

Spectacular, The, in literature.

Theater audiences--England--History--17th century.

Theater--England--History.

Theater.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 258 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

Lauren Robertson's original study shows that the theater of Shakespeare and his contemporaries responded to the crises of knowledge that roiled through early modern England by rendering them spectacular. Revealing the radical, exciting instability of the early modern theater's representational practices, Robertson uncovers the uncertainty that went to the heart of playgoing experience in this period. Doubt was not merely the purview of Hamlet and other onstage characters, but was in fact constitutive of spectators' imaginative participation in performance. Within a culture in the midst of extreme epistemological upheaval, the commercial theater licensed spectators' suspension among opposed possibilities, transforming dubiety itself into exuberantly enjoyable, spectacular show. Robertson shows that the playhouse was a site for the entertainment of uncertainty in a double sense: its pleasures made the very trial of unknowing possible.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Feb 2023).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781009225137 (ebook)

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.