1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910132510403321

Autore

Porter Chloe

Titolo

Making and unmaking in early modern English drama : spectators, aesthetics and incompletion / / Chloe Porter

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Manchester, UK : , : Manchester University Press, , 2015

©2014

ISBN

1-5261-0328-1

1-5261-0327-3

1-84779-891-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (viii, 230 pages) : illustrations; digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Manchester Shakespeare collection

Disciplina

822.309

Soggetti

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

English drama - 17th century - History and criticism

Art and literature - England - History - 16th century

Art and literature - England - History - 17th century

Material culture in literature - History - 16th century

Material culture in literature - History - 17th century

Visual perception in literature

Art in literature

Unfinished works of art

Iconoclasm in literature

Literature and literary studies

Literature: history and criticism / Literary studies: plays and playwrights

LITERARY CRITICISM - Drama

Biography, Literature & Literary studies - Literary studies: plays & playwrights

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Early modern English drama and visual culture -- 'In the keeping of Paulina': the unknowable image in The Winter's tale -- 'But begun for others to end': the ends of incompletion -- 'The brazen head lies broken': divine destruction in Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay -- Going



unseen: invisibility and erasure in The Two merry milkmaids.

Sommario/riassunto

Why are early modern English dramatists preoccupied with unfinished processes of 'making' and 'unmaking'? And what did the terms 'finished' or 'incomplete' mean for dramatists and their audiences in this period? Making and unmaking in early modern English drama is about the significance of visual things that are 'under construction' in works by playwrights including Shakespeare, Robert Greene and John Lyly. Illustrated with examples from across visual and material culture, it opens up new interpretations of the place of aesthetic form in the early modern imagination. Plays are explored as a part of a lively post-Reformation visual culture, alongside a diverse range of contexts and themes, including iconoclasm, painting, sculpture, clothing and jewellery, automata and invisibility. Asking what it meant for Shakespeare and his contemporaries to 'begin' or 'end' a literary or visual work, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of early modern English drama, literature, visual culture and history.