Early Modern Performance Beyond the Public Stage: Extra-theatrical Forms and Spaces

Sen, Amrita (Editor)/ Wood, Jennifer Linhart (Editor)

ISBN 10: 1350367966 / ISBN 13: 9781350367968

Published by Bloomsbury Arden, 2025

About this Item

416 pages. 9.21x6.14x1.00 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # x-1350367966

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Early Modern Performance Beyond the Public Stage: Extra-theatrical Forms and Spaces
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Arden
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350367966
• ISBN 13: 9781350367968
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.85 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

The first major work to explore and analyse the popular 'extra-theatrical' performances in late medieval and Renaissance England.

This wider heterogeneous category of early modern performance included puppetry, fireworks shows, rope dancing, minstrelsy, performing animals, games, civic drama, court masques, university drama, morris dances, and ceremonial rituals, all taking place in a variety of venues.

The volume reveals how these extra-theatrical productions shaped urban and rural life and conveyed a sense of spectacular excess, of exceeding traditional genres, conventional modes of performance and the typical bounds of theatrical space. The spaces where medieval and early modern drama flourished include pageant carts, convents, private homes, universities, waterways, and the streets of both urban and rural communities. Much like public theatres, these performance spaces also played a pivotal role in articulating individual, communal, and national aspirations.

Spanning the medieval period to the late 17th century, this volume engages with questions of spatiality, gender, religion, transcontinental exchanges, and colonialism, presenting the latest research from scholars across the globe.

About the Authors

Amrita Sen is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of UGC-MMTTC, affiliated faculty Department of English, University of Calcutta, India.

Jennifer Linhart Wood is the author of Sounding Otherness in Early Modern Drama and Travel: Uncanny Vibrations in the English Archive (2019), winner of the 2021 MRDS David Bevington Award for Best New Book.