The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan TheatrePart of a larger project to examine the Elizabethan politics of representation, Louis Montrose's The Purpose of Playing refigures the social and cultural context within which Elizabethan drama was created. Montrose first locates the public and professional theater within the ideological and material framework of Elizabethan culture. He considers the role of the professional theater and theatricality in the cultural transformation that was concurrent with religious and socio-political change, and then concentrates upon the formal means by which Shakespeare's Elizabethan plays called into question the absolutist assertions of the Elizabethan state. Drawing dramatic examples from the genres of tragedy and history, Montrose finally focuses his cultural-historical perspective on A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Purpose of Playing elegantly demonstrates how language and literary imagination shape cultural value, belief, and understanding; social distinction and interaction; and political control and contestation. |
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... DRAMA , THEATRE , SOCIETY , AND THE STATE : FORM AND PRESSURE I. The Reformation of Playing 19 II . A Theatre of Changes 30 III . Anatomies of Playing 41 IV . The Theatre , the City , and the Crown 53 V. From the Stage to the State 66 ...
... DRAMA , THEATRE , SOCIETY , AND THE STATE : FORM AND PRESSURE I. The Reformation of Playing 19 II . A Theatre of Changes 30 III . Anatomies of Playing 41 IV . The Theatre , the City , and the Crown 53 V. From the Stage to the State 66 ...
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... dramatic articulations of the relatively loose and sometimes erratic Elizabethan gender system may have mediated the complex and delicate relationship between the popular Elizabethan theatre and the Elizabethan state . In Parts One and ...
... dramatic articulations of the relatively loose and sometimes erratic Elizabethan gender system may have mediated the complex and delicate relationship between the popular Elizabethan theatre and the Elizabethan state . In Parts One and ...
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... dramatic works were originally produced . I am con- cerned to resituate such texts in relationship to other genres and modes of writing , and to resituate discursive practices in relationship to the social and political institutions and ...
... dramatic works were originally produced . I am con- cerned to resituate such texts in relationship to other genres and modes of writing , and to resituate discursive practices in relationship to the social and political institutions and ...
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... the Renaissance , " Diacritics 10 : 1 ( Spring 1980 ) , 77-87 ; Dominick LaCapra , Rethinking Intellectual History ( Ithaca : Cornell University Press , 1983 ) , 23-71 . Part One Drama , Theatre , Society , and the 16 PROLOGUE.
... the Renaissance , " Diacritics 10 : 1 ( Spring 1980 ) , 77-87 ; Dominick LaCapra , Rethinking Intellectual History ( Ithaca : Cornell University Press , 1983 ) , 23-71 . Part One Drama , Theatre , Society , and the 16 PROLOGUE.
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Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre Louis Montrose. Part One Drama , Theatre , Society , and the State : Form and Pressure The Reformation of Playing The professional drama of Shakespeare's London.
Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre Louis Montrose. Part One Drama , Theatre , Society , and the State : Form and Pressure The Reformation of Playing The professional drama of Shakespeare's London.
Contents
The Reformation of Playing | 19 |
A Theatre of Changes | 30 |
Anatomies of Playing | 41 |
The Theatre the City and the Crowns | 53 |
From the Stage to the State | 66 |
The Power of Personation | 76 |
The CrossPurposes of Playing | 99 |
THE SHAPING FANTASIES OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM | 107 |
Common terms and phrases
actors Amazons Andrew Gurr articulation artisans audience authority Bottom Bottom's Dream Chambers civic comedy comic commercial theatre construed context Corpus Christi Corpus Christi play court courtly critical Cynthia discourse dominant drama Earl Early Modern England Elizabe Elizabethan culture Elizabethan Stage Elizabethan theatre Endimion English entertainments Essex fantasy forms gender Globe Greenblatt Hamlet hath Henry Hermia Hippolyta Hippolytus ideological King late Elizabethan literary London Lord Chamberlain's Lord Chamberlain's Men Majestie marriage masculine material metatheatrical Midsummer Night's Dream modes mother Oberon Oxford patriarchal performance perspective play's playes playhouse playwright political popular practice Prince printed Privy Council professional players professional theatre public theatre purpose of playing quarto Queen Elizabeth quotation relationship Renaissance representation Revels Richard Richard II royal sexual Shakespeare's Shakespeare's play social society speare's Stephen Greenblatt Stephen Orgel structure studies subjects subversion suggest theatrical Theseus Theseus's tion Titania traditional Tudor women