Theatre of the Book, 1480-1880: Print, Text, and Performance in EuropeTheatre of the Book is an account of the entangled histories of print and the theatre in Europe between the Renaissance and the late nineteenth century: a history of European dramatic publication (providing comparative and historical perspective to the growing field of textual studies); an examination of the creation of the modern notion of text and performance; and a comparative genealogy of ideas about theatrical and textual reception. It shows that, far from being marginal to Renaissance dramatists, the printing press had an essential role to play in the birth of the modern theatre, crucially shaping the normative conception of 'theatre' as a distinct aesthetic medium and of drama as a distinct narrative form, helping to forge a theatricalist aesthetics in opposition to 'the book'. Treating playtexts, engravings, actor portraits, notation systems, and theatrical ephemera at once as material objects and expressions of complex cultural formations, Theatre of the Book examines the European theatre's continual refashioning of itself in the world of print. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 90
Page 16
... instance, might in fact be used as texts for school plays, or by members of the audience who needed help with their Latin, like Queen Elizabeth and several members of her court, who were given five copies of Plautus at the Westminster ...
... instance, might in fact be used as texts for school plays, or by members of the audience who needed help with their Latin, like Queen Elizabeth and several members of her court, who were given five copies of Plautus at the Westminster ...
Page 17
... instance, the large illuminated letters beginning each section are hand drawn, as are the smaller initial letters of every line of Terence's text, and spaces have been left in the commentary for Greek words to be entered by hand.14 Even ...
... instance, the large illuminated letters beginning each section are hand drawn, as are the smaller initial letters of every line of Terence's text, and spaces have been left in the commentary for Greek words to be entered by hand.14 Even ...
Page 23
... instance, continued through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to publish prefatory descriptions of the action (often printed separately for use as programmes). If, from the early sixteenth century, Italian dramatic editions ...
... instance, continued through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to publish prefatory descriptions of the action (often printed separately for use as programmes). If, from the early sixteenth century, Italian dramatic editions ...
Page 26
... instance) clearly demarcated speech-prefixes to bring into relief the various characters who peopled the scene, they were also giving readers other tools for organizing their conception of the play as a performance, for instance ...
... instance) clearly demarcated speech-prefixes to bring into relief the various characters who peopled the scene, they were also giving readers other tools for organizing their conception of the play as a performance, for instance ...
Page 27
... instance, who printed his own Four Elements and the plays of dramatists like Skelton. Pamphilus Gengenbach, based in Basel, was similarly a scholar-printer, printing, for instance, Reformation plays like his own Feeder off the Dead ...
... instance, who printed his own Four Elements and the plays of dramatists like Skelton. Pamphilus Gengenbach, based in Basel, was similarly a scholar-printer, printing, for instance, Reformation plays like his own Feeder off the Dead ...
Contents
1 | |
11 | |
13 | |
THEATRE IMPRIMATUR | 91 |
THE SENSES OF MEDIA | 145 |
THE COMMERCE OF LETTERS | 201 |
THEATRICAL IMPRESSIONS | 255 |
Epilogue | 308 |
Notes | 313 |
Works Cited | 444 |
Index | 487 |
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Theatre of the Book, 1480-1880: Print, Text, and Performance in Europe Julie Stone Peters Limited preview - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
acting action actors aesthetic attempt Beaumont and Fletcher become beginning body century Chapter characters claims classical collection Comedies Complete continued contract copies Corneille corrected create critics culture dedication describes directions discussion distinction drama dramatic dramatists early edition eighteenth English explains expression fact figures French gesture give hand identified illustrations imagination imitation important instance Italy John Jonson kind language late later learned letters Library literary living managers manuscript means narrative nature notes offer once original performance period Plautus plays playwrights poem poet poetic poetry preface printed printers production published readers reading reflected Renaissance represented scene scenic seemed seen senses seventeenth Shakespeare similarly space spectators speech stage theatre theatrical things Thomas tion tragedy trans translation various voice writes written