Throughout the seventeenth century, early modern play readers and
playgoers copied dramatic extracts (selections from plays and
masques) into their commonplace books, verse miscellanies, diaries,
and songbooks. Dramatic Extracts in Seventeenth-Century
English Manuscripts: Watching, Reading, Changing Plays is the
first to examine these often overlooked texts, which reveal what
early modern audiences and readers took, literally and
figuratively, from plays. As this under-examined archival evidence
shows, play readers and playgoers viewed plays as malleable and
modular texts to be altered, appropriated, and, most importantly,
used. These records provide information that is not available in
other forms about the popularity and importance of early modern
plays, the reasons plays appealed to their audiences, and the ideas
in plays that most interested audiences. Tracing the course of
dramatic extracting from the earliest stages in the 1590s, through
the prolific manuscript circulation at the universities, to the
closure and reopening of the theatres, Estill gathers these
microhistories to create a comprehensive overview of
seventeenth-century dramatic extracts and the culture of extracting
from plays. Dramatic Extracts in Seventeenth-Century English
Manuscripts: Watching, Reading, Changing Plays explores new
archival evidence (from John Milton’s signature to unpublished
university plays) while also analyzing the popularity of perennial
favorites such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The study of
dramatic extracts is the study of particulars: particular readers,
particular manuscripts, particular plays or masques, particular
historic moments. As D. F. McKenzie puts it, “different readers
[bring] the text to life in different ways.” By providing careful
analyses of these rich source texts, this book shows how active
play-viewing and play-reading (that is, extracting) ultimately led
to changing the plays themselves, both through selecting and
manipulating the extracts and positioning the plays in new
contexts. Published by University of Delaware Press. Distributed
worldwide by Rutgers University Press. Â
General
Imprint: |
University of Delaware Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
2015 |
First published: |
2015 |
Authors: |
Laura Estill
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 23mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
284 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-64453-046-7 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-64453-046-5 |
Barcode: |
9781644530467 |
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