Atrocity and Early Modern Drama edited by Sarah E. Johnson and Georgina Lucas

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bruster, Douglas, editor.

Hopkins, Lisa, editor.

Johnson, Sarah, editor.

Lucas, Georgina, editor.

Series:

Arden studies in early modern drama

Arden Studies in Early Modern Drama

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English drama--Early modern, 1500-1700.

English drama.

Violence in the theater.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Distribution:

London Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) 2025

Place of Publication:

London The Arden Shakespeare 2025

System Details:

text file HTML

Summary:

Extreme violence scarred the early modern period. Contemporary commentators grappled to find language to categorize the massacres, genocides, assassinations, enslavements, sacks, rapes, riots and regicides that characterized the period. Some used outrages , others cruelties , but, significantly, the term atrocity that we use today gained the most currency. Atrocity and Early Modern English Drama intervenes in the broad field of violence and early modern drama by placing acts of atrocity at its centre. In doing so, this essay collection offers the first book-length examination of atrocities and early modern English drama. The volume considers atrocity in early theatre, its varied representations in contemporary Shakespeare performance, and strategies for teaching early modern atrocity drama. Contributors introduce us to atrocity in the works of Shakespeare, John Fletcher, William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton across a range of forms including comedy, tragedy, revenge, cinematic adaptation, documentary film and contemporary theatre. The collection addresses the intersections of atrocities through class, crime, gender, race and the natural world. Together, the chapters interrogate how early modern English drama reflects upon and shapes understandings of the historically contingent, politically loaded and culturally contentious phenomena of atrocity

Contents:

Part I. Atrocity in early modern English drama. '[S]poyling, slaughter, and sondry torments': The spectre of early English atrocities ; The erasure of war crimes in John Fletcher's Bonduca ; White rape and Black atrocities in William Rowley's All's Lost by Lust ; Atrocity and revenge in The Bloody Banquet ; The Merchant of Venice and the atrocity of environmental precarity

Part II: Atrocity and Shakespearean performance. 'When the hurly-burly's done': Shakespeare after the Astor Place riots ; Rwanda & Juliet: Shakespeare and post-Genocide reconciliation ; Chapter 8: Henry V and the war crime: Killing the prisoners on the twenty-first-century stage and screen

Part III: Atrocity and pedagogy. Abiding with atrocity: White affect, white ignorance, and early modern drama pedagogy ; 'You have to play the truth of the scene'! ; Disrupting atrocious dramaturgies in Measure for Measure

Notes:

List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors 1.Georgina Lucas (Independent scholar) and Sarah Johnson (Royal Military College of Canada), 'Introduction' Part One: Typologies 2. Sarah Johnson (Royal Military College of Canada), 'War Crimes and Erasure in John Fletcher s The Tragedy of Bonduca' 3. Kirsten Mendoza (University of Dayton, Ohio, USA), 'The Poetics of Violated Property: Rape and Race on the Early Modern Stage' 4. Matt Carter (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA), 'Dismemberment, Cannibalism, and Revenge in Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton s The Bloody Banquet' 5. Jennifer Feather (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA), 'The Merchant of Venice and Environmental Atrocity' 6. Catherine Clifford (Graceland University, USA), 'Accidents and Atrocities in the Elizabethan Tournament' Part Two: Performance 7. Edel Lamb (Queen s University, Belfast, UK), '"When the hurly-burly s done": Shakespeare after the Astor Place Riots' 8. Georgina Lucas (Independent Scholar), 'Rwanda and Juliet: Shakespeare and Post-Genocide Reconciliation' 9. Ramona Wray (Queen s University, Belfast, UK), 'Televising Atrocity and The Hollow Crown: Changing Technologies and "Renaissance" Aesthetics' 10. Brandi Adams (Arizona State University, USA), '"[S]poyling, slaughter, and sondry torments": Atrocities in Shakespeare s Henriad and David Mich d and Joel Edgerton s The King' Part Three: Pedagogy 11. Patricia Cahill (Emory University, USA), 'Starting with Witchcraft: Atrocity in the Classroom' 12. Matthieu Chapman (State University of New York at New Paltz, USA), 'The Atrocity of Denying Black Being in Shakespearean Performance' 13. Nora Williams (University of Essex, UK), 'Disrupting Atrocious Dramaturgies in Measure for Measure' Notes References Index

Other Format:

Print version Atrocity and Early Modern Drama

ISBN:

9781350272439

1350272434

1350272426

9781350272422

1350272418

9781350272415

OCLC:

1491310709

Publisher Number:

CIPO000187814

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license