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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.
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