Shakespeare the Actor and the Purposes of PlayingUniversity of Chicago Press, 1993 - 325 pages For the Renaissance, all the world may have been a stage and all its people players, but Shakespeare was also an actor on the literal stage. Meredith Anne Skura asks what it meant to be an actor in Shakespeare's England and shows why a knowledge of actual theatrical practices is essential for understanding both Shakespeare's plays and the theatricality of everyday life in early modern England. Despite the obvious differences between our theater and Shakespeare's, sixteenth-century testimony suggests that the experience of acting has not changed much over the centuries. Beginning with a psychoanalytically informed account of acting today, Skura shows how this intense and ambivalent experience appears not only in literal references to acting in Shakespearean drama but also in recurring narrative concerns, details of language, and dramatic strategies used to engage the audience. Looking at the plays in the context of both public and private worlds outside the theater, Skura rereads the canon to identify new configurations in the plays and new ways of understanding theatrical self-consciousness in Renaissance England. Rich in theatrical, psychoanalytic, biographical, and historical insight, this book will be invaluable to students of Shakespeare and instructive to all readers interested in the dynamics of performance. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 68
Page xii
... Henry VI ( parts of chapters 4 and 9 ) was presented in lectures at the MLA , the Shake- speare Association of America , the City University of New York , and Boston University ; the material on Julius Caesar was presented at the ...
... Henry VI ( parts of chapters 4 and 9 ) was presented in lectures at the MLA , the Shake- speare Association of America , the City University of New York , and Boston University ; the material on Julius Caesar was presented at the ...
Page xiii
... Henry . Kind - Hartes Dreame . In Henry Chettle , " Kind - Hartes Dreame " ( 1592 ) ; William Kemp , " Nine Daies Wonder " ( 1600 ) , ed . G. B. Hamson , 3-65 . Bodley Head Quartos 4. London : John Lane , 1923 . Cooke , John . Green's ...
... Henry . Kind - Hartes Dreame . In Henry Chettle , " Kind - Hartes Dreame " ( 1592 ) ; William Kemp , " Nine Daies Wonder " ( 1600 ) , ed . G. B. Hamson , 3-65 . Bodley Head Quartos 4. London : John Lane , 1923 . Cooke , John . Green's ...
Page xiv
... Henry the Fifth Containing the Honourable Battle of Agincourt . In The Oldcastle Controversy : " Sir John Oldcastle , " Part 1 , and " The Famous Victories of Henry V , " ed . Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge , 145-99 . Manchester ...
... Henry the Fifth Containing the Honourable Battle of Agincourt . In The Oldcastle Controversy : " Sir John Oldcastle , " Part 1 , and " The Famous Victories of Henry V , " ed . Peter Corbin and Douglas Sedge , 145-99 . Manchester ...
Page xvi
... Henry IV , Part One , ed . A. R. Humphreys , New York : Random House , 1960 ; Henry IV , Part Two , ed . A. R. Humphreys , New York : Random House , 1966 ; Henry V , ed . John H. Walter , 1954 ; Henry VI , Part One , ed . Andrew S ...
... Henry IV , Part One , ed . A. R. Humphreys , New York : Random House , 1960 ; Henry IV , Part Two , ed . A. R. Humphreys , New York : Random House , 1966 ; Henry V , ed . John H. Walter , 1954 ; Henry VI , Part One , ed . Andrew S ...
Page 5
... Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor ) , whose profession entails , at least in part , playing with and for a great man and singing for his supper . All Shakespeare's play- ers — unlike actual Elizabethan players — are itinerants or ...
... Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor ) , whose profession entails , at least in part , playing with and for a great man and singing for his supper . All Shakespeare's play- ers — unlike actual Elizabethan players — are itinerants or ...
Common terms and phrases
Actaeon acting Anne Antony Arden Armado attack audience audience's baiting Barber and Wheeler bearbaiting beggar Bottom Brutus Caesar called Callow chapter character child cited in Chambers clown Comedy Coriolanus crowd crown death deer describes Drama dream Elizabethan Stage English Epilogue Fairy Falstaff fantasies father fawning fear flattering fool Hal's Hamlet Henriad Henry Henry IV Henry VI Histriomastix histrionic hunt identified inner plays italics added John John Marston Jonson King King Lear kneel Launce Lear literally London Lord Love's Labour's Lost male Midsummer Night's Dream mirror mother murder narcissistic offstage onstage performance play's players poet Queen Renaissance Richard Richard III role says scene Shake Shakespeare shame Shrew Sly's social sonnet speare's stage fright story suggests Tarlton tells theater theatrical thee Thomas thou Timon Timon of Athens Titus Titus Andronicus University Press Wives wounds York