Shakespeare's Festive World
Elizabethan Seasonal Entertainment and the Professional Stage
Part of European Studies in English Literature
- Author: Frangois Laroque
- Date Published: September 1993
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521457866
Paperback
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available on inspection
-
This book offers an exciting new perspective on Shakespeare's relation to popular culture. Shakespeare's plays draw extensively on the events and traditions of Elizabethan festivals and holidays, mingling popular and aristocratic or royal forms of entertainment in ways that combine or clash to produce new meaning, offering surprises which anticipate the Stuart masque. This process evolved from the early, romantic comedies into the late plays which recover the celebrations and patterns of renewal initiated in the 'green world': the values of festivity are inverted in the comedy of misrule, and finally perverted in the darker forms of the history plays and tragedies. Francois Laroque reconstructs the principal events, customs and games of the Elizabethan festive tradition, and reconsiders Shakespeare's technique in this context.
Read more- Explores Shakespeare's debt to popular culture
- Foreword by Sir Keith Thomas
- Revised and updated for this first English translation
Reviews & endorsements
'French scholarship teaches us ample European perspectives for Shakespeare's Renaissance art, and Francois Laroque has the rare ability to move gracefully between the ritual history of theatre and the fine detail of the plays.' Philip Brockbank
See more reviews'[Laroque] has performed a service to the scholarly community in restoring history to the New Historicism. The publication of Shakespere's Festive World is something to celebrate.' London Review of Books
'One of those rare book which teaches us to think like a person of a different culture…A lucid and imaginative book which combines an impressive breadth of knowledge with sensitivity to detail.' Cashiers Elisabethains
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: September 1993
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521457866
- length: 440 pages
- dimensions: 227 x 151 x 30 mm
- weight: 0.705kg
- contains: 16 b/w illus.
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Foreword Sir Keith Thomas
Preface
Part I. Introduction: Festivity During the Elizabethan Age:
1. Festivity and popular beliefs in the Elizabethan age
2. Festivity and society in Shakespeare's time
3. The calendar
4. The cycle of calendary festivals
5. The non-calendary festivals
Part II. Introduction: Some Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on Literary Analysis:
6. Festivity and dramatic structure: methodological problems
7. Festivity and time in Shakespeare's plays
8. Festivity and society in Shakespeare's plays
9. Festivity and its images in Shakespeare's plays
10. Othello and the festive traditions
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Appendix I: Calendars
Appendix II: Iconography
Index.
Related Books
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email lecturers@cambridge.org
Register Sign in» Proceed
You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.
Continue ×Are you sure you want to delete your account?
This cannot be undone.
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.
×