Shakespeare the Actor and the Purposes of PlayingFor 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. |
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Page xii
... Chapter 2 benefited from the generous and careful commentary of G. K. Hunter and S. P. Cerasano ; Alan Grob and ... chapters has been previously published , I have had the opportunity to pre- sent portions of them to various audiences ...
... Chapter 2 benefited from the generous and careful commentary of G. K. Hunter and S. P. Cerasano ; Alan Grob and ... chapters has been previously published , I have had the opportunity to pre- sent portions of them to various audiences ...
Page 4
... Chapter 2 argues that there are other , more important continuities . Like the modern actor's the Eliza- bethan player's " profession has in it a kind of contradiction , " said J. Earle in 1628 , " for none is more dislik'd , and yet ...
... Chapter 2 argues that there are other , more important continuities . Like the modern actor's the Eliza- bethan player's " profession has in it a kind of contradiction , " said J. Earle in 1628 , " for none is more dislik'd , and yet ...
Page 6
... chapter 5 are not literally players or directors , nor , I believe , are they intended as figures for actors . They are , however , caught in moments and exchanges of the sort which actors experience onstage and which fas- cinated the ...
... chapter 5 are not literally players or directors , nor , I believe , are they intended as figures for actors . They are , however , caught in moments and exchanges of the sort which actors experience onstage and which fas- cinated the ...
Page 7
... Chapter 8 suggests that in associating the performer with the victim of a violent mob , Shakespeare was not eccentric , although his vision was more emphatic than others ' . Shakespeare could have seen at least two types of popular ...
... Chapter 8 suggests that in associating the performer with the victim of a violent mob , Shakespeare was not eccentric , although his vision was more emphatic than others ' . Shakespeare could have seen at least two types of popular ...
Page 12
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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