Illuminates our understanding of the soul as a historically and philosophically vital concept through Shakespearean drama Second Death seeks to revitalise our understanding of the soul as a philosophically profound, theoretically radical, and ultimately--and counterintuitively--theatrically realised concept. The book contends that the work of Shakespeare, when closely read alongside early modern cultural and religious writings, helps us understand the soul's historical placement as a powerful paradox: it was essential to establishing humanity but resistant to clear representation. Drawing from current critical theory as well as extensive historical research, Second Death examines works of Shakespearean drama, including The Merchant of Venice, Coriolanus, and The Winter's Tale, to suggest that rather than simply being incapable of understanding or physical realisation, the soul expressed itself in complex and subtle modes of performance. As a result, this book offers new ways of looking at identity, theatre, and spirituality in Shakespeare's era and in our own. Key Features Provides understanding of the soul as not only a religious, cultural, and literary concept, but also a theatrical one Discusses genealogy of the philosophical and theological traditions that inform the soul's placement in the early modern era, from Plato to Protestantism Includes novel readings of key works of Shakespearean drama along with substantial analyses of other Shakespeare plays (King Lear, Hamlet) as well as other early modern works (by John Donne, Christopher Marlowe, John Foxe, John Stow, Thomas Middleton, John Milton, and others) Draws new interdisciplinary connections among theatre studies, Shakespeare, critical theory, and religious studies

This volume maps Shakespearean virtue in all its plasticity and variety, providing thirty-eight succinct, wide-ranging essays that reveal a breadth and diversity exceeding any given morality or code of behaviour. Clearly explaining key concepts in the history of ethics and in classical, theological, and global virtue traditions, the collection reveals their presence in the works of Shakespeare in interpersonal, civic, and ecological scenes of action. Paying close attention to individual identity and social environment, chapters also consider how the virtuous horizons broached in Shakespearean drama have been tested anew by the plays' global travels and fresh encounters with different traditions. Including sections on global wisdom, performance and pedagogy, this handbook affirms virtue as a resource for humanistic education and the building of human capacity.

Illuminates our understanding of the soul as a historically and philosophically vital concept through Shakespearean drama Second Death seeks to revitalise our understanding of the soul as a philosophically profound, theoretically radical, and ultimately--and counterintuitively--theatrically realised concept. The book contends that the work of Shakespeare, when closely read alongside early modern cultural and religious writings, helps us understand the soul's historical placement as a powerful paradox: it was essential to establishing humanity but resistant to clear representation. Drawing from current critical theory as well as extensive historical research, Second Death examines works of Shakespearean drama, including The Merchant of Venice, Coriolanus, and The Winter's Tale, to suggest that rather than simply being incapable of understanding or physical realisation, the soul expressed itself in complex and subtle modes of performance. As a result, this book offers new ways of looking at identity, theatre, and spirituality in Shakespeare's era and in our own. Key Features Provides understanding of the soul as not only a religious, cultural, and literary concept, but also a theatrical one Discusses genealogy of the philosophical and theological traditions that inform the soul's placement in the early modern era, from Plato to Protestantism Includes novel readings of key works of Shakespearean drama along with substantial analyses of other Shakespeare plays (King Lear, Hamlet) as well as other early modern works (by John Donne, Christopher Marlowe, John Foxe, John Stow, Thomas Middleton, John Milton, and others) Draws new interdisciplinary connections among theatre studies, Shakespeare, critical theory, and religious studies

This Element demonstrates how Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing models an understanding of the philosophy of Stoicism as performance, rather than as intellectual doctrine. To do this, it explores how, despite many early modern cultural institutions' suppression of Stoicism's theatrical capacity, a performative understanding lived on in one of the most influential texts of the era, Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, and that this performativity was itself inherited from one of Castiglione's sources, Cicero's De Oratore. The books concludes with a sustained reading of Much Ado to demonstrate how the play, in performance, itself acts as a Stoic exercise.

What does it mean for early modern theatre to be 'live'? How have audiences over time experienced a sense of 'liveness'? This collection extends discussions of liveness to works from the 16th and 17th centuries, both in their initial incarnations and contemporary adaptations. Drawing on theatre and performance studies, as well as media theory, this volume uses the concept of liveness to consider how early modern theatre - including non-Western and non-traditional performance - employs embodiment, materiality, temporality and perception to impress on its audience a sensation of presence. The volume's contributors adopt varying approaches and cover a range of topics from material and textual studies, to early modern rehearsal methods, to digital and VR theatre, to the legacy of Shakespearean performance in global theatrical repertoires. This collection uses both early modern and contemporary performance practices to challenge our understanding of live performance. Productions and adaptions discussed include the Royal Shakespeare Company's Dream (2021), CREW's Hands on Hamlet (2017), Kit Monkman's Macbeth (2018), Arslankoey Theatre Company's Kralice Lear (2019), and a season of productions by the Original Practice Shakespeare Festival. Early Modern Liveness looks beyond theatrical events as primary sites of interpretive authority and examines the intimate and ephemeral experience of encountering early modern theatre in its diverse manifestations.