The Pursuit of Style in Early Modern Drama

Forms of Talk on the London Stage
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-1-316-51746-8
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 531 g

The Pursuit of Style in Early Modern Drama examines how early modern plays celebrated the power of different styles of talk to create dynamic forms of public address. Across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, London expanded into an uncomfortably public city where everyone was a stranger to everyone else. The relentless anonymity of urban life spurred dreams of its opposite: of being a somebody rather than a nobody, of being the object of public attention rather than its subject. Drama gave life to this fantasy. Presented by strangers and to strangers, early modern plays codified different styles of talk as different forms of public sociability. Then, as now, to speak of style was to speak of a fantasy of public address. Offering fresh insight for scholars of literature and drama, Matthew Hunter reveals how this fantasy – which still holds us in its thrall – played out on the early modern stage.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hunter, Matthew

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments; Introduction: speaking of style; 1. Stage Talk; 2. Love Talk; 3. Court Talk; 4. Tough Talk; 5. Plain Talk; Afterword: speaking of judgment; Selected works cited; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Hunter, Matthew
Matthew Hunter is Assistant Professor of Literature at Texas Tech University. His research is focused on underscoring and exploring the connections between literary form and social life in early modern England. He is co-editor of Publicity and the Early Modern Stage: People Made Public (2021).