Renaissance Drama 40 : What Is Renaissance Drama?

by Masten, Jeffrey; West, William N.

• ISBN13: 9780810128453
• ISBN10: 0810128454
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-11-30
• Publisher: Northwestern Univ Pr

Summary

In this fortieth volume of Renaissance Drama, we pause again, not with the idea that we could define, or even describe, what might be, ought to be, or is included in the study of Renaissance drama (or if it is even always or ever the Renaissance, or the drama, that we study). But this does not even seem to have been what moved the first conversations that became "Research Opportunities" and Renaissance Drama. Rather, as they seem to have felt, we want to look at where we are and where our studies might lead us, and we too think we might as well make a beginning. For this issue, the editors invited a number of scholars working on different kinds of Renaissance drama, in a variety of ways and in several languages, to contribute brief essays addressing the state of the field of Renaissance drama, "the field" being convenient shorthand for the practical but productive indefinition under which we carry out our research and publish Renaissance Drama. In particular we asked them to consider these questions: How and with what effects has the study of Renaissance drama (or early modern performance) changed over the past half-century? What now is Renaissance drama? What could Renaissance drama become? What do you see as the most exciting (or least productive) development in the field? How have other developments in literary studies, performance studies, or other historical periods affected work in the field? What is missing from work in the field that it would be desirable to include or revive? Are there strategies you would propose for working through the divisions in the field based on national boundaries, between languages and traditions, or between canonical figures like Shakespeare, Moliere, and other kinds of work? What kinds of distinctions do you see in the field? How are they useful or misleading? What new avenues in the field should open up further? Where should we look now? What is the most important work being done, or remaining to be done?

Table of Contents

Submissions	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
Taking Stock	p. 3
Exclusive Of	p. 9
Renaissance and/or Early Modern Drama and/or Theater and/or Performance: A Dialogue	p. 19
Toward a New Theatricality?	p. 29
The Play's Not the Thing	p. 37
The Dream of a Perfect History	p. 47
Acting and Ontology in Molière	p. 57
What's the Worst Thing You Can Do to Shak/x/espeare?	p. 71
Recent Trends in Editing of Renaissance Drama Anthologies	p. 91
Authority and Theatrical Community: Early Modern Spanish Theater Manuscripts	p. 101
Defining the Proper Members of the Renaissance Theatrical Community	p. 113
No Field Is an Island: Postcolonial and Transnational Approaches to Early Modern Drama	p. 125
"Après le déluge, More Criticism": Philology, Literary History, and Ancestral Reading in the Coming Posttranscription World	p. 135
Renaissance Drama: Future Directions	p. 151
Still No Precise Subject: The View from French	p. 161
The Work of Italian Theater	p. 171
William Shakespeare's Regnal Connections: Whose Court Is This Anyway?	p. 185
Tragedy and Trauerspiel for the (Post-)Westphalian Age	p. 197
Hannah Arendt Strasse	p. 209
Notes on Contributors	p. 219
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