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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
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.
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.
The Philosopher’s Toothache proposes that early modern Stoicism
constituted a radical mode of performance. Stoicism—with its
focus on bodily sensation, imagined spectatorship, and daily mental
and physical exercise—exists as what the philosopher Pierre Hadot
calls a “way of life,” a set of habits and practices. To be a
Stoic is not to espouse doctrine but to act.Informed by work in
both classical philosophy and performance studies, Donovan Sherman
argues that Stoicism infused the complex theatrical culture of
early modern England. Plays written and performed during this
period gave life to Stoic exercises that instructed audiences to
cultivate their virtue, self-awareness, and creativity. By
foregrounding Stoicism’s embodied nature, Sherman recovers a
vital dimension too often lost in reductive portrayals of the
Stoics by early modern writers and contemporary scholars alike. The
Philosopher’s Toothache features readings of dramatic works by
William Shakespeare, Cyril Tourneur, and John Marston alongside
considerations of early modern adaptations of classical Stoics
(Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius) and Neo-Stoics such as
Justus Lipsius. These plays model Stoic virtues like
unpredictability, indifference, vulnerability, and
dependence—attributes often framed as negative but that can also
rekindle a sense of responsible public action.
The Philosopher's Toothache proposes that early modern Stoicism
constituted a radical mode of performance. Stoicism-with its focus
on bodily sensation, imagined spectatorship, and daily mental and
physical exercise-exists as what the philosopher Pierre Hadot calls
a "way of life," a set of habits and practices. To be a Stoic is
not to espouse doctrine but to act. Informed by work in both
classical philosophy and performance studies, Donovan Sherman
argues that Stoicism infused the complex theatrical culture of
early modern England. Plays written and performed during this
period gave life to Stoic exercises that instructed audiences to
cultivate their virtue, self-awareness, and creativity. By
foregrounding Stoicism's embodied nature, Sherman recovers a vital
dimension too often lost in reductive portrayals of the Stoics by
early modern writers and contemporary scholars alike. The
Philosopher's Toothache features readings of dramatic works by
William Shakespeare, Cyril Tourneur, and John Marston alongside
considerations of early modern adaptations of classical Stoics
(Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius) and Neo-Stoics such as
Justus Lipsius. These plays model Stoic virtues like
unpredictability, indifference, vulnerability, and
dependence-attributes often framed as negative but that can also
rekindle a sense of responsible public action.
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.
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