Atrocity and early modern drama / edited by Sarah E. Johnson and Georgina Lucas.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Johnson, Sarah E.

Lucas, Georgina

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Arden studies in early modern drama

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Atrocities in literature.

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

English drama.

Violence in the theater.

Physical Description:

x, 287 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : The Arden Shakespeare, 2025.

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 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."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction / Sarah E. Johnson and Georgina Lucas

Part I: Atrocity in early modern English drama. '[S]poyling, slaughter, and sondry tormente' : the spectre of early English atrocities / Brandi K Adams ; The erasure of war crimes in John Fletcher's Bonduca / Sarah E. Johnson ; White rape and black atrocities in William Rowley's All's Lost by Lust / Kirsten N. Mendoza ; Atrocity and revenge in The Bloody Banquet / Matt Carter ; The Merchant of Venice and the atrocity of environmental precarity / Jennifer Feather

Part II: Atrocity and Shakespearean performance. 'When the hurly-burly's done' : Shakespeare after the Astor Place riots / Edel Lamb ; Rwanda & Juliet : Shakespeare and post-genocide reconciliation / Georgina Lucas ; Henry V and the war crime : killing the prisoners on the twenty-first-century stage and screen / Ramona Wray

Part III: Atrocity and pedagogy. Abiding with atrocity : white affect, white ignorance, and early modern drama pedagogy / Patricia A. Cahill ; "You have to play the truth of the scene! / Matthieu Chapman ; Disrupting atrocious dramaturgies in Measure for Measure / Nora J. Williams.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Atrocity and Early Modern Drama.

ISBN:

9781350272392

1350272396

OCLC:

1419439358