Theatre of the Book, 1480-1880: Print, Text, and Performance in EuropeOxford University Press, 2000 M11 9 - 494 pages Theatre of the Book is an account of the entangled histories of print and the theatre in Europe between the Renaissance and the late nineteenth century: a history of European dramatic publication (providing comparative and historical perspective to the growing field of textual studies); an examination of the creation of the modern notion of text and performance; and a comparative genealogy of ideas about theatrical and textual reception. It shows that, far from being marginal to Renaissance dramatists, the printing press had an essential role to play in the birth of the modern theatre, crucially shaping the normative conception of 'theatre' as a distinct aesthetic medium and of drama as a distinct narrative form, helping to forge a theatricalist aesthetics in opposition to 'the book'. Treating playtexts, engravings, actor portraits, notation systems, and theatrical ephemera at once as material objects and expressions of complex cultural formations, Theatre of the Book examines the European theatre's continual refashioning of itself in the world of print. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 69
Page 5
... create the theatre for which he wrote. Printing, far from being marginal to the Renaissance theatre, was crucial at the outset. Those writing plays during the first century of printing were, in fact, deeply invested in the new ...
... create the theatre for which he wrote. Printing, far from being marginal to the Renaissance theatre, was crucial at the outset. Those writing plays during the first century of printing were, in fact, deeply invested in the new ...
Page 7
... created. Theatres used exclusively for the production of plays sprang up. Elaborate perspectival views were created in them. There was more money for costumes and machines. Performances no longer had to wait for festivals, or for a ...
... created. Theatres used exclusively for the production of plays sprang up. Elaborate perspectival views were created in them. There was more money for costumes and machines. Performances no longer had to wait for festivals, or for a ...
Page 8
... creating, out of the multitude of medieval performance forms, a normative notion of “theatre”: a place where comedies and tragedies were to be represented by actors “playing by the book.” Chapter , “Critical Law, Theatrical Licence ...
... creating, out of the multitude of medieval performance forms, a normative notion of “theatre”: a place where comedies and tragedies were to be represented by actors “playing by the book.” Chapter , “Critical Law, Theatrical Licence ...
Page 15
... create the performance from scratch.1Travelling entertainers had to invent their material or find it where they could, in stories from the great “authors,” in jokes and songs heard along the way, in books like the collections of sermons ...
... create the performance from scratch.1Travelling entertainers had to invent their material or find it where they could, in stories from the great “authors,” in jokes and songs heard along the way, in books like the collections of sermons ...
Page 16
... the Paris edition): “Note that whoever plays the character of God must be at the opening here all alone in paradise until he has created the angels.”9 But, like many such texts, this voluminous Mystery was Printing the Drama.
... the Paris edition): “Note that whoever plays the character of God must be at the opening here all alone in paradise until he has created the angels.”9 But, like many such texts, this voluminous Mystery was Printing the Drama.
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
13 | |
THEATRE IMPRIMATUR | 91 |
THE SENSES OF MEDIA | 145 |
THE COMMERCE OF LETTERS | 201 |
THEATRICAL IMPRESSIONS | 255 |
Epilogue | 308 |
Notes | 313 |
Works Cited | 444 |
Index | 487 |
Other editions - View all
Theatre of the Book, 1480-1880: Print, Text, and Performance in Europe Julie Stone Peters Limited preview - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
acting action actors aesthetic attempt Beaumont and Fletcher become beginning body century Chapter characters claims classical collection Comedies Complete continued contract copies Corneille corrected create critics culture dedication describes directions discussion distinction drama dramatic dramatists early edition eighteenth English explains expression fact figures French gesture give hand identified illustrations imagination imitation important instance Italy John Jonson kind language late later learned letters Library literary living managers manuscript means narrative nature notes offer once original performance period Plautus plays playwrights poem poet poetic poetry preface printed printers production published readers reading reflected Renaissance represented scene scenic seemed seen senses seventeenth Shakespeare similarly space spectators speech stage theatre theatrical things Thomas tion tragedy trans translation various voice writes written