Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 16th to 18th centuries
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Twins in Early Modern English Drama and Shakespeare (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,239
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Twins in Early Modern English Drama and Shakespeare (Paperback)
Series: Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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This volume investigates the early modern understanding of twinship
through new readings of plays, informed by discussions of twins
appearing in such literature as anatomy tracts, midwifery manuals,
monstrous birth broadsides, and chapbooks. The book contextualizes
such dramatic representations of twinship, investigating
contemporary discussions about twins in medical and popular
literature and how such dialogues resonate with the twin characters
appearing on the early modern stage. Garofalo demonstrates that, in
this period, twin births were viewed as biologically aberrant and,
because of this classification, authors frequently attempt to
explain the phenomenon in ways which call into question the moral
and constitutional standing of both the parents and the twins
themselves. In line with current critical studies on pregnancy and
the female body, discussions of twin births reveal a distrust of
the mother and the processes surrounding twin conception; however,
a corresponding suspicion of twins also emerges, which monstrous
birth pamphlets exemplify. This book analyzes the representation of
twins in early modern drama in light of this information, moving
from tragedies through to comedies. This progression demonstrates
how the dramatic potential inherent in the early modern
understanding of twinship is capitalized on by playwrights, as
negative ideas about twins can be seen transitioning into tragic
and tragicomic depictions of twinship. However, by building toward
a positive, comic representation of twins, the work additionally
suggests an alternate interpretation of twinship in this period,
which appreciates and celebrates twins because of their difference.
The volume will be of interest to those studying Shakespeare and
Renaissance Literature in relation to the History of Emotions, the
Body, and the Medical Humanities.
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