Horror on the early modern stage nightmare on Thames Street edited by Sheila Coursey & Hannah Korell

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Coursey, Sheila, editor.

Korell, Hannah, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

English drama.

Horror in the theater.

English drama--Early modern and Elizabethan.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

London The Arden Shakespeare 2026

Summary:

Reframes and theorizes horror as a discrete aesthetic genre in early modern drama and explores connections between early modern and contemporary horror media.

"Early modern English theatre provides countless examples of the tropes and feelings we associate with the horror genre. Depictions of obscenity and violence designed to elicit a mixture of loathing, fear, repugnance, shock, awe, and desire in their audiences abound. From the bodily mutilations of Titus Andronicus, to the demonic, ghostly, and psychological terrors of Macbeth and Hamlet, to the sensory shocks of torture and imprisonment within The Duchess of Malfi. This collection of essays argues that the horror genre as we know it should be extended back to the 16th century to include classic early modern plays from A Midsummer Night's Dream to The Witch of Edmonton. Contributors plot a new theory of horror through its roots as a conscious and complex generic mode in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century. Drawing together essays on topics such as bodily torture and experimentation, necrophilia and decomposition, psychological and supernatural torment, scholars critically engage with categories such as tragedy, comedy, parody, and folk horror. The volume offers new interpretations of both famous and obscure early modern plays, and places them in conversation with contemporary horror films like Midsommar, The Wicker Man, The Substance, and the works of David Cronenberg, providing a new route into the burgeoning field of early modern horror for scholars and students"-- Bloomsbury Collections

Contents:

Introduction : nightmare on Thames Street / Sheila Coursey and Hannah Korell

Aesthetic and affective registers of horror in Doctor Faustus and Macbeth / Ani Govjian

Insidious sights : jump scares and suburban horror in early modern domestic tragedy / Sheila Coursey

So bad they’re good : 1980s teen slasher films and early modern revenge tragedies / M. G. Aune and Shawn Reese

Hamlet’s “eternal blazon” as contagious horror / Khristian S. Smith

Putting lips on a skull and skin on a ghost : the problem with refleshing corpses in Hamlet / Chelsea Lee

Boxes of wormseed and paper prisons : bodies, horror, and imprisonment in The Duchess of Malfi / Charlotte Thurston

“Thou Art a Dead Thing” : disquieting the Jacobean body with pragmatic aesthetics / James Rizzi

Blood fe(a)sts—a case study in body horror : William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and the Vienna Action Group / Amanda Di Ponio

Midsummer/midsommar nightmares : exploitation and ecohorror in Shakespeare and Aster / Jessica Walker

New flesh and fairy flesh : body horror in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the early films of David Cronenberg / Victoria McMahon

Epilogue : “A Herd Confused” : folk horror and the allegorical functions of the early modern / Greg Colón Semenza

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references

Online resource; title from home page (Bloomsbury Collections, viewed May 7, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version Horror on the early modern stage

ISBN:

9781350553750

1350553751

9781350553774

1350553778

9781350553736

1350553735

OCLC:

1586550973

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license