Clowning and authorship in early modern theatre / Richard Preiss.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Preiss, Richard, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English drama.

Fools and jesters in literature.

Clowns in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 287 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Clowning & Authorship in Early Modern Theatre

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

To early modern audiences, the 'clown' was much more than a minor play character. A celebrity performer, he was a one-man sideshow whose interactive entertainments - face-pulling, farce interludes, jigs, rhyming contests with the crowd - were the main event. Clowning epitomized a theatre that was heterogeneous, improvised, participatory, and irreducible to dramatic texts. How, then, did those texts emerge? Why did playgoers buy books that deleted not only the clown, but them as well? Challenging the narrative that clowns were 'banished' by playwrights like Shakespeare and Jonson, Richard Preiss argues that clowns such as Richard Tarlton, Will Kemp, and Robert Armin actually made playwrights possible - bridging, through the publication of their routines, the experience of 'live' and scripted performance. Clowning and Authorship tells the story of how, as the clown's presence decayed into print, he bequeathed the new categories around which theatre would organize: the author, and the actor.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: Introduction: the play is not the thing; 1. What audiences did; 2. Send in the clown; 3. Wiring Richard Tarlton; 4. Nobody's business; 5. Private practice; Epilogue: the principal verb.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-77708-9

1-107-77958-8

1-107-77878-6

1-107-78129-9

1-107-78495-6

1-107-78449-2

1-107-78005-5

1-139-56779-9