Starlings, Whales and Herring: Animals as Portents in Early Modern England

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (1 (241)) ◽  
pp. 45-58
Author(s):  
Paweł Rutkowski
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The World ◽  
Future Events

The present article explores the early modern preoccupation with omens – extraordinary occurrences observed both on earth and in the sky – which were universally believed to presage some future events and/or provide humans with providential signs and messages. Animals apparently formed a category of particularly common portents, due to their ubiquity and traditional links with the supernatural. Numerous examples of such omens demonstrate that animals and their behaviour were capable of evoking a variety of interpretations (moral, political, religious, etc.) and were indispensable in upholding the emblematic vision of the world, which, providentially, was supposed to be full of signs that could be deciphered by careful observers for their own benefit.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Maria Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Literary History ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Related Material ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Early English

Mythographies were books that collected, explained, and interpreted myth-related material. Extremely popular during the Renaissance, these works appealed to a wide range of readers. While the European mythographies of the sixteenth century have been utilized by scholars, the short, early English mythographies, written from 1577 to 1647, have puzzled critics. The first generation of English mythographers did not, as has been suggested, try to compete with their Italian predecessors. Instead, they made mythographies into rhetorical instruments designed to intervene in topical debates outside the world of classical learning. Because English mythographers brought mythology to bear on a variety of contemporary issues, they unfold a lively and historically well-defined picture of the roles myth was made to play in early modern England. Exploring these mythographies can contribute to previous insights into myth in the Renaissance offered by studies of iconography, literary history, allegory, and myth theory.

From Messina to Delhi: Much Ado about Staging Global Shakespeares in Olympic Times

Sederi ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 57-78
Author(s):  
Sofía Muñoz-Valdivieso
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Present Article ◽  
International Performance ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
Much Ado About Nothing ◽  
The World ◽  
Performance Issues ◽  
The Uk

The present article discusses one of the contributions of the Royal Shakespeare Company to the World Shakespeare Festival, a celebration of the Bard as the world’s playwright that took place in the UK in 2012 as part of the so-called Cultural Olympiad. Iqbal Khan directed for the RSC an all-Indian production of the comedy Much Ado about Nothing that transposed the actions from early modern Messina to contemporary Delhi and presented its story of love, merry war of wits and patriarchal domination in a colourful setting that recreated a world of tradition and modernity. Received with mixed reviews that in general applauded the vibrant relocation while criticising some directorial choices, this 2012 Much Ado about Nothing in modern-day Delhi raises a number of questions about cultural ownership and Shakespeare’s international performance – issues that are particularly relevant if we see the play in relation to other productions of the World Shakespeare Festival in this Olympic year but also in the context of the increasing internationalization of Shakespeare’s cultural capital in contemporary times.

scholarly journals THE SOCIAL, PERSONAL, AND SPIRITUAL DYNAMICS OF GHOST STORIES IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-359
Author(s):  
LAURA SANGHA
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Cultural Resources ◽  
Ghost Stories ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
And Gender

AbstractIn early modern England, spectral figures were regular visitors to the world of the living and a vibrant variety of beliefs and expectations clustered around these questionable shapes. Yet whilst historians have established the importance of ghosts as cultural resources that were used to articulate a range of contemporary concerns about worldly life, we know less about the social and personal dynamics that underpinned the telling, recording, and circulation of ghost stories at the time. This article therefore focuses on a unique set of manuscript sources relating to apparitions in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England to uncover a different vantage point. Drawing on the life-writing and correspondence of the antiquarian who collected the narratives, it lays bare concerns about familial relations and gender that ghost stories were bound up with. Tracing the way that belief in ghosts functioned at an individual level also allows the recovery of the personal religious sensibilities and spiritual imperatives that sustained and nourished continuing belief in ghosts. This subjective angle demonstrates that ghost stories were closely intertwined with processes of grieving and remembering the dead, and they continued to be associated with theological understandings of the afterlife and the fate of the soul.

Shylock, the Devil and the Meaning of Deception in The Merchant of Venice

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-51
Author(s):  
Jonathan Elukin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The World ◽  
The Devil ◽  
Fallen World

Abstract The article explores Shakespeare’s secularized retelling of the Christian theological narrative of deceiving the Devil, with Antonio playing the role of Christ and Shylock as the Devil. The article argues that recasting the contest between Christ and the Devil in the world of Venice sets the stage for Shakespeare’s larger exploration of the pervasive nature of deceit in human affairs. Although it seems that Shakespeare’s characters are resigned to live in a fallen world where truth is obscured, Portia’s invocation of mercy may be Shakespeare’s attempt to offer some hope of an earthly salvation. The article argues that this portrait of a world filled with deception resonated with Shakespeare’s audience. Men and women in early modern England lived in a world where they often had to hide their religious identities and loyalties. This interpretation challenges more recent attempts to see the play as primarily concerned with race and tolerance.

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