The End of the Beginning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Scott
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Young Subject ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Romeo And Juliet ◽  
Titus Andronicus ◽  
The Status

Developing Chapter 2’s interest in forms of obligation and authority, Chapter 3 extends its focus to the tragedies and the spaces that children occupy in relation to their parents. Providing new readings of Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus, and King Lear, Chapter 3 explores the status of the child, not as a necessarily young subject, although many of Shakespeare’s children are, but in relation to early modern forms of obligation. Looking at contemporary parenting manuals, pedagogic texts, and household manuals, this chapter puts some of Shakespeare’s tragic children within the contexts of authority and supplication. Understanding the term ‘child’ as descriptive of the human’s relation to God, Chapter 3 explores the different forms that subjection takes in the tragic imagination. Attending to free will in Romeo and Juliet, infantilism in Titus, and supplication in Lear, this chapter shows the significance of the ties that bind one human to another.

Shakespeare's Representation of Weather, Climate and Environment

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Chiari
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Romeo And Juliet ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
Ability To Act

While ecocritical approaches to literary texts receive more and more attention, climate-related issues remain fairly neglected, particularly in the field of Shakespeare studies. This monograph explores the importance of weather and changing skies in early modern England while acknowledging the fact that traditional representations and religious beliefs still fashioned people’s relations to meteorological phenomena. At the same time, a growing number of literati stood against determinism and defended free will, thereby insisting on man’s ability to act upon celestial forces. Yet, in doing so, they began to give precedence to a counter-intuitive approach to Nature. Sophie Chiari argues that Shakespeare reconciles the scholarly views of his time with more popular ideas rooted in superstition and that he promotes a sensitive, pragmatic understanding of climatic events. She pays particular attention to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Othello, King Lear, Anthony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest. Taking into account the influence of classical thought, each of the book’s seven chapters emphasises specific issues (e.g. cataclysmic disorders, the dog days’ influence, freezing temperatures, threatening storms) and considers the way climatic events were presented on stage and how they came to shape the production and reception of Shakespeare’s drama.

Shakespeare’s Pharmacy

2018 ◽  
pp. 101-151
Author(s):  
Eric Langley
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Pharmaceutical Medicine ◽  
King Lear ◽  
The Winter's Tale ◽  
Winter's Tale ◽  
Titus Andronicus

Part II of my study introduces sympathy’s attendant oppositional force, antipathy, and consequently Chapters 3 and 4 are both informed by early-modern scientific conceptions of pharmaceutical medicine, wherein the same bittersweet drug can have both medicinal and poisonous (or sympathetic and antipathetic) capacity; this pharmaceutical metaphor is shown to widely inform Shakespeare’s drama, both at the level of genre, plot, and character, and, more significantly for my study, at the level of word, where language itself is repeatedly described as operating with the force of the Platonic pharmakon. Communication is shown to have the capacity both to cure and to kill, leaving the Shakespearean subject caught up among indeterminable influences, beset by malign attendants, infectious carriers, sickly sympathizers, and ill communicators. Chapter 3 explores a number of plays—including The Winter’s Tale, Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, King Lear, and All’s Well That Ends Well.

scholarly journals Shakespeare’s Anatomies of Death

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Sugg
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Body ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Romeo And Juliet ◽  
Antony And Cleopatra ◽  
Suicide Bereavement ◽  
Modern Identity

This chapter looks at figurings of death, suicide, bereavement, and the afterlife in Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and King Lear. It considers the ways in which these seemingly universal phenomena are shaped and coloured by distinctive early-modern attitudes to gender; the afterlife; honour; and the Christian soul. How does Shakespeare’s language circle around, or break down before, the imagination or the fact of death? How do death, suicide, or bereavement relate to different forms of early modern identity? The sheer ephemerality of the human body is one key element: the dust of a king is indistinguishable from that of a pauper. Yet, more chilling than the promiscuous revolutions of dust, what seems to have been most troubling of all was death's annihilation of language itself.

King Lear and its Origins

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kerrigan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Desire For Death ◽  
History Play ◽  
Oedipus At Colonus

The agreed, major sources of King Lear are the anonymous history play King Leir and Sidney’s Arcadia. To these and other early modern ‘originals’ this chapter adds classical tragedies by Seneca, Euripides, and Sophocles—most conspicuously his Oedipus at Colonus, which was readily available in Latin translation. The ancient tragedies resonate with King Lear thanks to conventions of literary imitation that were well understood in the Jacobean period, but their presence is also symptomatic of a drive within the play to get back to the origins of nature, injustice, and causation. The influences of Plutarch and Montaigne are also highlighted. The portrayal of death (or the illusion of it) and the desire for death, in the play and its sources, are analysed. Focusing on the scenes at Dover Cliff and the division of the kingdom/s, this chapter moves to a new account of the complications of the play’s conclusion in both quarto and Folio texts.

Shakespeare’s Dancing Bodies

2019 ◽  
pp. 172-196
Author(s):  
Brandon Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Dance ◽  
The Body ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Somatic Psychology ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Romeo And Juliet ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Early Modern Times

Romeo’s well-known excuse that he cannot dance because he has soles of lead is demonstrative of the autonomous volitional quality Shakespeare ascribes to body parts, his utilization of humoral somatic psychology, and the horizontally divided body according to early modern dance practice and theory. This chapter considers the autonomy of and disagreement between the body parts and the unruliness of the humors within Shakespeare’s dramas, particularly Romeo and Juliet. An understanding of the body as a house of conflicting parts can be applied to the feet of the dancing body in early modern times, as is evinced not only by literary texts, but dance manuals as well. The visuality dominating the dance floor provided opportunity for social advancement as well as ridicule, as contemporary sources document. Dance practice is compared with early modern swordplay in their shared approaches to the training and social significance of bodily proportion and rhythm.

Early Modern English Borders: Homogeneity and Heterogeneity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Boyi Chen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
State Building ◽  
Channel Islands ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
Early Modern English ◽  
The Status ◽  
British Case

This article discusses the process of English border-formation in Wales, Ireland, Scotland and around the Channel Islands, including efforts of the English government in border formation, and the local identities of borderlands. I evaluate political considerations, as well as examining social and cultural resonances to show that the English historical border was formed as part of the consolidation of state and nation in terms of Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the Channel Islands. I argue that border ‘building’ was not always smooth, or to be taken for granted in terms of state-building. The borderlands of the English state have manifested both a homogeneity and heterogeneity in the four regions, each with four particular forms or tendencies in their deep structures: homogeneity, from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from heterogeneity to homogeneity, and heterogeneity. In the article, I use homogeneity to refer to the status of the acculturational tendency, while using heterogeneity to refer to a deviation of the interaction between the English state and other states or nations. This article touches upon a topic not restricted to the British case, but relevant worldwide: the construction of borders in the context of the fundamental conflict between a ‘nation’, which is to say a culturally and often linguistically distinctive entity, and a ‘state’.

Philosophers and Physicians on the Scientific Validity of Latin Physiognomy, 1200-1500

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Scientific Validity ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Rational Explanation ◽  
The Status ◽  
Jean Buridan ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
Sound Theoretical Basis

AbstractThe article surveys and contextualizes the main arguments among philosophers and academic physicians surrounding the status of physiognomy as a valid science from the thirteenth to the early sixteenth centuries. It suggests that despite constant doubts, learned Latin physiognomy in the later Middle Ages was recognized by natural philosophers (William of Spain, Jean Buridan, William of Mirica) and academic physicians (Rolandus Scriptor, Michele Savonarola, Bartolomeo della Rocca [Cocles]) as a body of knowledge rooted in a sound theoretical basis. Physiognomy was characterized by stability and certainty. As a demonstrative science it was expected to provide rational explanation for every bodily sign. In this respect, learned physiognomy in the Middle Ages was dramatically different from its classical sources, from Islamic and possibly from early-modern physiognomy as well.

Open Houses from Etic to Emic Perspectives: Casa Aperta in Early-Modern and Nineteenth-Century Italy

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 440-463
Author(s):  
Raffaella Sarti
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Local People ◽  
Geographical Differences ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
The Status ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

What did early-modern and nineteenth-century Italians mean when they used the expressions tener casa aperta or aver casa aperta, literally to keep open house and to have an open house? In this article I will try to answer this question, which is far less trivial than one might imagine. Before tackling the topic, a premise is necessary. In some previous works, I used an etic category of ‘open houses’, i.e. a category I elaborated to interpret the implications of the presence, in many households, of domestic staff from different classes, places, races than their masters/employers. Such a presence made those houses open. The border between different peoples and cultures was inside the houses themselves that were places of exchanges, confrontations and clashes. In this article, I will develop a different approach: I will map the emic uses of the ‘open-house’ category, i.e. I will analyse how early-modern and nineteenth-century Italians used the expressions tener casa aperta or aver casa aperta. While some uses had to do with hospitality and sociability, others had legal meanings, referring to citizenship rights and privileges, the status of aristocrats, the differences between foreigners and local people and taxpaying. I will pay particular attention to the latter, also suggesting possible geographical differences and changes over time. This will present an opportunity to delve into the cultural and legal world of early-modern and nineteenth-century Italians, and to unveil the importance of houses for one's status.

Politeness theory and Shakespeare's four major tragedies

1989 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Brown ◽  
Albert Gilman
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Politeness Theory ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
Colloquial Speech ◽  
Theory Of Literature

ABSTRACTPenelope Brown and Stephen Levinson (1987) have proposed that power (P), distance (D), and the ranked extremity (R) of a face-threatening act are the universal determinants of politeness levels in dyadic discourse. This claim is tested here for Shakespeare's use of Early Modern English in Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello. The tragedies are used because: (1) dramatic texts provide the best information on colloquial speech of the period; (2) the psychological soliloquies in the tragedies provide the access to inner life that is necessary for a proper test of politeness theory; and (3) the tragedies represent the full range of society in a period of high relevance to politeness theory. The four plays are systematically searched for pairs of minimally contrasting dyads where the dimensions of contrast are power (P), distance (D), and intrinsic extremity (R). Whenever such a pair is found, there are two speeches to be scored for politeness and a prediction from theory as to which should be more polite. The results for P and for R are those predicted by theory, but the results for D are not. The two components of D, interactive closeness and affect, are not closely associated in the plays. Affect strongly influences politeness (increased liking increases politeness and decreased liking decreases politeness); interactive closeness has little or no effect on politeness. The uses of politeness for the delineation of character in the tragedies are illustrated. (Politeness theory, speech act theory, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, theory of literature, Shakespeare studies)

scholarly journals Re-shaping King Lear: Space, Place, Costume, and Genre

Linguaculture ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
Michael Hattaway
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Titus Andronicus ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Troilus And Cressida ◽  
Character Reading ◽  
Mind's Eye ◽  
Last Will And Testament

Abstract Performance studies must enjoy parity of esteem with critical studies because they remind us of the plurality of “readings” that are generated by a Shakespearean text. Shakespeare seems to have apprehended this when, in Othello, he used a nonce-word, “denotement”, which applies to Othello’s reading of his wife in his mind’s eye. I examine other sequences in which we watch a character “reading” on-stage or imagined action, in Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, Cymbeline, Richard II, and Troilus and Cressida. In Hamlet this involves re-reading as well as generic displacement, which, I argue, is a way of rendering inwardness. As I test case, I analyse a production of King Lear by Shakespeare’s Globe, on a fairground stage, in which the king reshaped himself, became a folkloric figure, like a figure in Nashe’s Summer’s Last Will and Testament. The play itself was thus, indecorously, reshaped as “The Tale of King Lear”. “Dramatic truth”, therefore, in no way depends upon theatrical “realism”.

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