Shakespeare's golden ages : resisting nostalgia in Elizabethan drama / Kristine Johanson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Johanson, Kristine, author.

Series:

Edinburgh critical studies in Renaissance culture.

Edinburgh Critical Studies in Renaissance Culture Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English drama.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 206 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh, Scotland : Edinburgh University Press, [2022]

Summary:

Diverging from critical paths that have focused on nostalgia as a memorializing practice or on Stuart nostalgia for Elizabeth, this book argues that Shakespeare's Elizabethan history plays stage nostalgia as a future-focused political rhetoric. In doing so, the book suggests new directions for studying nostalgia. Case studies including Richard II and Julius Caesar demonstrate how Shakespeare creates a dramatic argument for nostalgia's power and possibility, even as he represents the fruitlessness of trying to reclaim the past and the fiction of that past's ideal nature. In his dramaturgy, nostalgia functions as a persuasive call for (short-lived) political change. The book provides new interpretations of Shakespeare's contemporaries to illustrate how his use of nostalgia depends on, innovates from and influences his fellow playwrights. By reading literary, religious and political texts alongside Shakespeare's histories, this book attends additionally to the extra-dramatic valences nostalgic rhetoric obtains in Elizabethan England.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Series Editors’ Preface

Prologue

Note on Citation

Introduction: Rethinking Nostalgia

Chapter 1 Against Nostalgia: Looking Forward to the Future in the Queen’s Men’s Plays and Marlowe’s Tamburlaine

Chapter 2 What Merry World in England? Nostalgic Paroemia and The Second Part of Henry VI

Chapter 3 In the Mean Season: Richard II’s Absent Hospitality

Chapter 4 The Lessons of Nostalgia in Julius Caesar and Sejanus

Conclusion: Resisting Nostalgia

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 18 Nov 2022).

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781474493574

1474493572

9781399518901

1399518909

9781474493567

1474493564

OCLC:

1336020240