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 89
Page 15
... later interludes and guild plays, has had to be pieced together from account books and fragmentary comments, or extrapolated from later records.4 But by the mid-sixteenth century, there was an abundance of documentation: descriptions of ...
... later interludes and guild plays, has had to be pieced together from account books and fragmentary comments, or extrapolated from later records.4 But by the mid-sixteenth century, there was an abundance of documentation: descriptions of ...
Page 21
... later sixteenth century on, but the most common format for printed drama (as for other kinds of works) was the octavo, small enough to be portable but spacious enough to be easily readable.23 If printed drama was, then, from the ...
... later sixteenth century on, but the most common format for printed drama (as for other kinds of works) was the octavo, small enough to be portable but spacious enough to be easily readable.23 If printed drama was, then, from the ...
Page 23
... later sixteenth century did it develop conventions that reflected the drama's generic particularity. The majority of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century dramatic texts (cheaply printed saints' plays, farces, the various kinds of ...
... later sixteenth century did it develop conventions that reflected the drama's generic particularity. The majority of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century dramatic texts (cheaply printed saints' plays, farces, the various kinds of ...
Page 24
... later sixteenth century, however, conventions had begun to harden. At least as important, printers seem to have come to rely on a readership familiar with both the theatre and the typographic conventions of the drama. They seem to have ...
... later sixteenth century, however, conventions had begun to harden. At least as important, printers seem to have come to rely on a readership familiar with both the theatre and the typographic conventions of the drama. They seem to have ...
Page 29
... later sixteenth century, in conjunction with the new theatres.50 It was generally assumed, well into the seventeenth century, that the possessors of playtexts had a right to give them to publishers or withhold them from the press, with ...
... later sixteenth century, in conjunction with the new theatres.50 It was generally assumed, well into the seventeenth century, that the possessors of playtexts had a right to give them to publishers or withhold them from the press, with ...
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