1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910155129903321

Titolo

Enchantment and dis-enchantment in Shakespeare and early modern drama : wonder, the sacred, and the supernatural / / edited by Nandini Das and Nick Davis

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Routledge, , 2017

ISBN

1-317-29067-4

1-315-64499-1

1-317-29068-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (202 pages)

Collana

Routledge studies in renaissance literature and culture ; ; 33

Altri autori (Persone)

DasNandini

DavisNick <1977->

Disciplina

822.33

822.3

Soggetti

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

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Demonism and disenchantment in the First part of the contention / Jesse M. Lander -- 2. Mortal, martyr, or monster? Working on the king's corpse in the Henriad / Maggie Vinter -- 3. The charm in Macbeth / E.S. Mallin -- 4. Enchanted materialism in Paracelsus, Hobbes, and Hamlet / Aaron Kitch -- 5. "Wondrous" healings " the "new philosophy", medicine and miracles on the early modern stage / Margaret Healy -- 6. "Things which are not" : idolatry and enchantment in The white devil / Chloe Porter -- 7. Charisma and the making of the misanthrope in Timon of Athens / Joan Pong Linton -- 8. "The wealthy magazine of nature" : knowledge, wonder, and gunpowder in Fletcher's The island princess / Sarah Linwick -- 9. "Almost a miracle" : penitence in The winter's tale / Sara Saylor -- 10. Ghost-stories and living monuments : brining wonders to life in The winter's tale / Erin Minear.

Sommario/riassunto

This volume addresses dealings with the wondrous, magical, holy, sacred, sainted, numinous, uncanny, auratic, and sacral in the plays of Shakespeare and contemporaries, produced in an era often associated with the irresistible rise of a thinned-out secular rationalism. By



starting from the literary text and looking outwards to social, cultural, and historical aspects, it comes to grips with the instabilities of 'enchanted' and 'disenchanted' practices of thinking and knowledge-making in the early modern period. If what marvelously stands apart from conceptions of the world's ordinary functioning might be said to be 'enchanted', is the enchantedness weakened, empowered, or modally altered by its translation to theatre? We have a received historical narrative of disenchantment as a large-scale early modern cultural process, inexorable in character, consisting of the substitution of a rationally understood and controllable world for one containing substantial areas of mystery. Early modern cultural change, however, involves transpositions, recreations, or fresh inventions of the enchanted, and not only its replacement in diminished or denatured form. This collection is centrally concerned with what happens in theatre, as a medium which can give power to experiences of wonder as well as circumscribe and curtail them, addressing plays written for the popular stage that contribute to and reflect significant contemporary reorientations of vision, awareness, and cognitive practice. The volume uses the idea of dis-enchantment/re-enchantment as a central hub to bring multiple perspectives to bear on early modern conceptualizations and theatricalizations of wonder, the sacred, and the supernatural from different vantage points, marking a significant contribution to studies of magic, witchcraft, enchantment, and natural philosophy in Shakespeare and early modern drama.