The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts 1580-1630OUP Oxford, 2006 M02 23 - 344 pages Drawing on entirely new evidence, The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial Arts 1580-1630 examines the history of English dramatic form and its relationship to the mathematics, technology, and early scientific thought during the Renaissance period. The book demonstrates how practical modes of thinking that were typical of the sixteenth century resulted in new genres of plays and a new vocabulary for problems of poetic representation. In the epistemological moment the book recovers, we find new ideas about form and language that would become central to Renaissance literary discourse; in this same moment, too, we find new ways of thinking about the relationship between theory and practice that are typical of modernity, new attitudes towards spatial representation, and a new interest in both poetics and mathematics as distinctive ways of producing knowledge about the world. By emphasizing the importance of theatrical performance, the book engages with continuing debates over the cultural function of the early modern stage and with scholarship on the status of modern authorship. When we consider playwrights in relation to the theatre rather than the printed book, they appear less as 'authors' than as figures whose social position and epistemological presuppositions were very similar to the craftsmen, surveyors, and engineers who began to flourish during the sixteenth century and whose mathematical knowledge made them increasingly sought after by men of wealth and power. |
From inside the book
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Page 2
... simply as an artefact of print. Indeed, in strict terms it will be necessary to distinguish a critical and theoretical notion of 'drama' that finally derives from the conventions of the printed book, on the one hand, from the theatre ...
... simply as an artefact of print. Indeed, in strict terms it will be necessary to distinguish a critical and theoretical notion of 'drama' that finally derives from the conventions of the printed book, on the one hand, from the theatre ...
Page 3
... simply from neo-classical literary theory, as is often presumed of playwrights such as Ben Jonson, nor simply from the legacy of medieval staging and the Tudor interludes, as is often argued about Shakespeare, but from contemporary ...
... simply from neo-classical literary theory, as is often presumed of playwrights such as Ben Jonson, nor simply from the legacy of medieval staging and the Tudor interludes, as is often argued about Shakespeare, but from contemporary ...
Page 5
... simply by donning a cap and walking off the stage. How to explain the quasi-magical powers of a performance that could manipulate space, time, and the conventional properties of bodies so easily? How to defend, if necessary, the theatre ...
... simply by donning a cap and walking off the stage. How to explain the quasi-magical powers of a performance that could manipulate space, time, and the conventional properties of bodies so easily? How to defend, if necessary, the theatre ...
Page 10
... simply an epic-heroic 'muse of fire, that would ascend | The brightest heaven of invention' (lines 1–2) but an act of mathematical calculation from the audience that is almost identical to the imaginative projection Dekker had also ...
... simply an epic-heroic 'muse of fire, that would ascend | The brightest heaven of invention' (lines 1–2) but an act of mathematical calculation from the audience that is almost identical to the imaginative projection Dekker had also ...
Page 11
... simply as a matter of philology, grammar, and style. And they arrive at this new epistemological approach to poetics, surprisingly enough, not simply by reading classical authors but by comparing it to practical geometry, early-modern ...
... simply as a matter of philology, grammar, and style. And they arrive at this new epistemological approach to poetics, surprisingly enough, not simply by reading classical authors but by comparing it to practical geometry, early-modern ...
Other editions - View all
The English Renaissance Stage:Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial ... Henry S. Turner No preview available - 2006 |
The English Renaissance Stage: Geometry, Poetics, and the Practical Spatial ... Henry S. Turner No preview available - 2010 |
Common terms and phrases
action analysis appear argues argument Aristotle arts aspects authority become building century Chapter character cited classical contemporary conventions critical Dekker demonstrate derived describe discussion distinct draw early early-modern effect English entire epistemological field figure finally follows formal geometry George Puttenham Harvey iconic ideas imagination important interest invention Jonson kind knowledge language later lines literary London mathematical matter meaning measurement mechanical methods mode nature necessary notion object offers particular passage performance period philosophy play plot poesy poet poetic position possible practical principles printed problems production provides reader reading reasoning reference relationship remains representation requires rhetoric rules scene sense Sidney Sidney’s signified similar simply social space spatial specific stage structure techniques theatre theatrical things thinking thought translation units universal writing