Theaters of Intention: Drama and the Law in Early Modern EnglandEarly modern Britain witnessed a transformation in legal reasoning about human volition and intentional action, which contributed to new conventions and techniques for the theatrical representation of premeditated conduct. Theaters of Intention examines the relation between law and theater in this period, reading plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe, and others to demonstrate how legal understanding of willful human action pervades sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English drama. Drawing on case law, legal treatises, parliamentary journals, and theatrical account books, the author considers the interplay between theatrical deliberation and legal dramatization of human intention. He analyzes such canonical plays as Hamlet, Timon of Athens, Dr. Faustus, Bartholomew Fair, and Othello alongside less familiar texts, including Barnes's The Devil's Charter, Jonson's Entertainment at Althorp, and the anonymous Nobody and Somebody. Notable instances of the new theatrical representation of premeditated conduct include the appearance in Hamlet of wording from the sensational case of Hales versus Petit and dramatizations of contract law in enactments of demonic pacts in the plays of Marlowe and Barnes. The final chapter examines the iconography of Nobody, an early modern equivalent of John Doe, and features some dozen illustrations of contemporary woodcuts, drawings, and engravings. Tied closely to the convergence of authorial and dramatic forethought, theatrical representation of premeditated action demonstrates the close relationships among purposeful human behavior, fictionality, economic exchange, and the experience of time. |
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Contents
Hamlet Hales v Petit and the Hysteresis of Action 25 388 | 25 |
Ben Jonson and the Law of Contract | 68 |
Commodities and Contracts | 114 |
Promissory Performances | 165 |
Contracting Damnation | 184 |
Nobodies That Matter | 216 |
Afterword | 263 |
324 | |
348 | |
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Theaters of Intention: Drama and the Law in Early Modern England Luke Andrew Wilson No preview available - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
actors agency agent agreement appears argues assumpsit attempt audience authority Bartholomew Fair Ben Jonson Bruegel Chapter character claim Cokes common law compositional conceptual context course death debt demonic pact deodand devil discourse Doctor Faustus dramatic early modern economic effect Elck English example exchange fact Faustus's felo de se fiction figure gift economy Hales Hamlet Henslowe Henslowe's History human identity imagined implies induction contract John Jonson jury kill king Lady Elizabeth's Men language legal fictions liability linked literary logic malice Marlowe's matter means mens rea Mephastophilis murder narrative negative pregnant Nemo Nobody's notion object performance person play players playwright Plowden poem poison practice produce promise question reference relation relationship Renaissance representation represented rhetorical scene seems sense Shakespeare similar Slade's social soliloquy specifically statute structure suggests temporal theater theatrical thing thinking Timon tion transferred malice Trundle wardship witch witchcraft words