A new account of playgoing in Elizabethan England, in which audiences participated as much as performers. What if going to a play in Elizabethan England was more like attending a football match than a Broadway show-or playing in one? In Common Understandings, Poetic Confusion, William N. West proposes a new account of the kind of participatory entertainment expected by the actors and the audience during the careers of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. West finds surprising descriptions of these theatrical experiences in the figurative language of early modern players and playgoers-including understanding, confusion, occupation, eating, and fighting. Such words and ways of speaking are still in use today, but their earlier meanings, like that of theater itself, are subtly, importantly different from our own. Playing was not confined to the actors on the stage but filled the playhouse, embracing audiences and performers in collaborative experiences that did not belong to any one alone but to the assembled, various crowd. What emerged in playing was a kind of thinking and feeling distributed across persons and times that were otherwise distinct. Thrown apples, smashed bottles of beer, and lumbering bears-these and more gave verbal shape to the physical interactions between players and playgoers, creating circuits of exchange, production, and consumption.

A new account of playgoing in Elizabethan England, in which audiences participated as much as performers. What if going to a play in Elizabethan England was more like attending a football match than a Broadway show-or playing in one? In Common Understandings, Poetic Confusion, William N. West proposes a new account of the kind of participatory entertainment expected by the actors and the audience during the careers of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. West finds surprising descriptions of these theatrical experiences in the figurative language of early modern players and playgoers-including understanding, confusion, occupation, eating, and fighting. Such words and ways of speaking are still in use today, but their earlier meanings, like that of theater itself, are subtly, importantly different from our own. Playing was not confined to the actors on the stage but filled the playhouse, embracing audiences and performers in collaborative experiences that did not belong to any one alone but to the assembled, various crowd. What emerged in playing was a kind of thinking and feeling distributed across persons and times that were otherwise distinct. Thrown apples, smashed bottles of beer, and lumbering bears-these and more gave verbal shape to the physical interactions between players and playgoers, creating circuits of exchange, production, and consumption.

In this 2003 book West explores what 'theatre' meant to medieval and Renaissance writers and places Renaissance drama within the influential context of the encyclopedic writings produced at the time. It was an encyclopedic culture, obsessed with sorting knowledge, and early encyclopedias presented themselves as textual theatres, in which everything knowable could be represented in concrete, visible form. Medieval and Renaissance plays, similarly, took encyclopedic themes as their topics: the mysteries of nature, universal history, the world of learning. But instead of transmitting authorized knowledge unambiguously, as it was supposed to be, the theatre created a situation in which ordinary experience could become a source of authority. West covers a wide range of works, from the encyclopedic texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance to Marlowe's Dr Faustus, Jonson's The Alchemist, and Bacon's Novum Organum, to provide a fascinating picture of the cultural life of the period.

This book analyzes the discourses and practices that defined Renaissance theater, as related to the development of encyclopedic texts and vice versa. Looking at what "theater" meant to medieval and Renaissance writers and critics, William West sets Renaissance drama within one of its cultural and intellectual contexts. Although the study focuses on the Renaissance, it also draws on and analyzes substantial classical and medieval material. It is of equal interest to intellectual historians, theater historians and students of early literature.

What place does spiritual need and healing have in the counselling room? Denying the spiritual dimension of personal distress can be potentially hurtful to clients, but the issue of spirituality is also fraught with professional and ethical issues for therapists. This book draws on original research to move the debate about spiritual need forwards in relation to therapeutic practice, supervision, and training. An international team of contributors offer a diverse range of perspectives to critically explore a wide spectrum of spiritual issues, including prayer, pastoral care and traditional healing. Edited by a leading figure in the field, this book: * Illuminates experiences of both clients and practitioners through detailed case vignettes * Draws on cutting-edge research in this growing field * Invites readers to address their own therapeutic practice with hands-on discussion points This measured and thoughtful approach provides a fascinating insight to an often complex and controversial topic. As such, the book is essential reading for trainees and practitioners of counselling and psychotherapy.

Renaissance Drama explores the variety of theatrical and performance traditions and practices in early modern Europe and intersecting cultures. Volume 41 features articles that extend our understanding of early modern playing, theater history, and dramatic texts and interpretation, encouraging innovative theoretical and methodological approaches to these traditions, examining familiar works, and revisiting well-known texts from fresh perspectives.