Masquerading Early Modern Disability

Screen Bodies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-108
Author(s):  
Lauren Coker
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Sexually Violent ◽  
Intimate Exchange

Building on Katherine Schaap Williams’s (2009) reading of the play, this article uses a disability studies approach to consider Richard Loncraine’s 1995 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Loncraine’s adaptation allows modern-day viewers to experience a highly visual (and often intimate) exchange with Sir Ian McKellen as Richard Gloucester. Specifically, Gloucester’s verbal claims of a disability that renders him unsuitable as a leader and a lack of sexual prowess are juxtaposed alongside sexually violent visual actions and imagery—particularly in the form of phallic symbols. The juxtaposition of verbal passivity in opposition to visual aggression demonstrates how Richard showcases or hides his disability as he pursues the throne: the first half of the film features Richard masquerading ability, while the second half features him masquerading disability.

Shakespeare Afoot

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kerrigan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

That Shakespeare adds a limp to the received characterization of Richard III is only the most conspicuous instance of his interest in how actors walked, ran, danced, and wandered. His attention to actors’ footwork, as an originating condition of performance, can be traced from Richard III through A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It into Macbeth, which is preoccupied with the topic and activity all the way to the protagonist’s melancholy conclusion that ‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player | That struts and frets his hour upon the stage’. Drawing on classical and early modern accounts of how people walk and should walk, on ideas about time and prosody, and the experience of disability, this chapter cites episodes in the history of performance to show how actors, including Alleyn, Garrick, and Olivier, have worked with the opportunities to dramatize footwork that are provided by Shakespeare’s plays.

CHOICE ARCHITECTURE IN SHAKESPEARE’S PUBLIC MEETINGS: NUDGE THEORY AND RICHARD III, CORIOLANUS, AND JULIUS CAESAR

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ceri Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Behavioural Economics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Choice Architecture ◽  
Group Norms ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Public Meetings

Abstract The political and dramatic intentions behind the use of appeals to the early modern public (on and off stage) have already been examined by Shakespeareans. This article points out the technical workings of such appeals by using two new areas of research on decision-making: the ethnography of public meetings and behavioural economics on how to influence choosers. These theories can illuminate the strategies used by the tribunes in handling the citizens of Coriolanus, by Antony in dealing with the plebeians in Julius Caesar, and by Buckingham and Richard when gathering support from the Londoners in Richard III. Using six common psychological biases (anchor-and-adjust, availability, representativeness, priming, arousal, and group norms), Shakespeare’s politicians prompt their hearers to change their minds: a celebrity warrior is recast as a wily tyrant, an execution as a murder, and a regent as the legitimate king.

scholarly journals "Unaccomodated Man": Dismodernism and Disability Justice in King Lear

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Significant Disability ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Important Site

King Lear's exploration of what it means to be human has significant Disability Studies implications that have not yet been examined. Through the course of the play, Lear gains awareness of interdependence, bodily vulnerability, and human-animal kinship, and his new worldview unsettles the shared ground of ableism and anthropocentrism. Analyzing three of Lear's significant speeches, I argue that King Lear's exploration of what it means to be human anticipates Lennard Davis's recent theoretical concept, dismodernism. Both Lear and Gloucester express concern for Poor Tom in ways that link disability to community and social justice. Through considering King Lear in relation to early modern contexts and current Disability Studies theory and activism, I argue that the play is an important site for developing a socially conscious Shakespearean Disability Studies.

scholarly journals Failed Mothers, Monster Sons. Reading Shakespeare’S Richard Iii as a Fairy Tale

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-111
Author(s):  
Dana Percec
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Historical Play

Abstract The paper looks at Shakespeare’s historical play Richard III and its fairy tale-like character given by the configuration of the main character as an arch-villain and the presence of motifs and patterns typically associated with the fairy tale genre. More specifically, it considers the mother-son relationship between the Duchess of York and Richard in the light of the motif of monstrous birth. It is not a coincidence that the emergence of such motifs coincides with the historical contexts of the early modern period. Reading Richard III in this key is related to the revisionist approach to chronicle plays.

‘Never such Innocence’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Scott
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
History Plays ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Historical Responsibility ◽  
Adult World

This chapter focuses on the history plays. Ascertaining the dominant ways in which the child becomes a demonstrative figure of legacy, responsibility, and failure, Chapter 2 explores the prevalence of young children in Shakespeare’s chronicle history. Focusing on the diminutive figure of the child, this chapter examines how the idea of ‘littleness’ drives the representation of children as innocent, vulnerable, and emotive. Discussing how Shakespeare exploits as well as challenges contemporary and Christian symbols of childhood, the history plays demonstrate a profound investment in the figure of the child as an image of historical responsibility. Beginning with Richard III, this chapter explores the theatrical power of infanticide and the strategic ways in which children disrupt the playing spaces, from the interruption of an aside to the production of emotional affect; the chapter assesses early modern expectations of childhood and the competing ways in which children are presented as distinct from the adult world.

Shakespeare Differently Disabled

2016 ◽  
pp. 434-454
Author(s):  
Tobin Siebers
Keyword(s):  
Disability Studies ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
Richard Iii

The standard locus of disability in Shakespeare has been Richard III, spanning from Freud’s seminal interpretation of Richard as a narcissist to readings in the emerging field of disability studies. Richard III represents the possibility for disability scholars to argue for the role that disability plays as a marker of villainy, one that obscures the humanity of disabled people, and they have made this case with precision and energy. It is crucial, however, to ask the price that disability scholars have paid by fitting Richard III so securely to their emerging discipline. If a certain disability studies chooses Richard III as its standard bearer, what would another disability studies look like that refuses him, and which Shakespearean character would be the standard bearer of this differently disabled disability studies?

The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Critical Race Studies ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Race And Sexuality

The forty established and emerging scholars whose work is included in this volume bring an expansive understanding of feminism to questions of embodiment in Shakespeare and early modern studies. Using a diverse range of methods—historicism, psychoanalysis, queer theory, critical race studies, postcolonialism, posthumanism, eco-criticism, animal studies, disability studies, textual editing, performance and media studies—they present original readings of Shakespeare’s plays and poems while situating his work both in the early modern period and the present day. Paying particular attention to the intersections of gender with race and sexuality, the volume collectively offers an exciting snapshot of the ways that ‘feminism’ and ‘Shakespeare’ continue to speak to and challenge each another.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Encarnación Juárez-Almendros
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Disability Theory ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Models Of Disability ◽  
Construction Of Disability

The introduction defines and describes the academic field of disabilities studies. It explains the different models of disability, --social, medical, religious, constructionist-- as well as the recent scholarship in disability studies. It also explains the major concepts drawn from other disciplines to illuminate the construction of disability, such as Erving Goffman’s stigma theory, Mary Douglas’s notion of the other as “dirt,” and Michael Foucault’s social constructionism. Diverse theories of the body as well as phenomenological perspectives complement these constructionist positions. Furthermore, the introduction delineates theoretical disability studies in the humanities and particularly discusses applications of disability methodologies in the analysis of early modern literary productions. Finally, it expounds the feminist approach to disability theory used in the book.

Staging Failure

2020 ◽  
pp. 123-153
Author(s):  
Andrew Bozio
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Queer Theory ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Disability Studies ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
Cognitive Ecology ◽  
Cognitive Failure ◽  
Early Modern Theater ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
Ecological Thinking

Midway through The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Rafe mistakes the Bell Inn for an ancient castle. This chapter draws upon that episode to show how failures of ecological thinking can disrupt the assumptions that are embedded within a particular place. Contrasting Rafe’s misreading of the Bell with similar episodes in Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote, the chapter establishes both the particular cognitive ecology that sustains Rafe’s error and its implications for early modern theater. It argues that Rafe’s disorientation satirizes the way that early modern playgoers reimagined the stage as a dramatic setting, helping to illuminate the multiple mistakes that George and Nell make as they interrupt the performance of The London Merchant. Borrowing insights from queer theory and disability studies, the chapter concludes by suggesting that George and Nell’s disorientation reveals the normative conventions that are embedded within the physical and social environment of the early modern playhouse. In this way, madness, confusion, and other forms of cognitive failure allow The Knight of the Burning Pestle to stage the incommensurability of the two dominant ways of thinking through the Blackfriars.

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