Theatres and Encyclopedias in Early Modern Europe

ISBN-13: 9780521809146 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 312 str.

William West; Stephen Orgel; Anne Barton

Opis

This book analyzes the discourses and practices that defined Renaissance theater, as related to the development of encyclopedic texts and vice versa. Looking at what "theater" meant to medieval and Renaissance writers and critics, William West sets Renaissance drama within one of its cultural and intellectual contexts. Although the study focuses on the Renaissance, it also draws on and analyzes substantial classical and medieval material. It is of equal interest to intellectual historians, theater historians and students of early literature.

Recenzje

''… At the heart of every encyclopaedic effort is the desire to marvel,' West comments, and this sense of awe is mirrored in his own engaging explication of the processes of wonder construction. It comes out through the densely argued examples and the splendid illustrations of fantastic beasts and performances spaces. Curiositas, 'the lust of the eyes', which links passion for knowledge to the watching of 'shows', works its dangerous magic through the majority of this fascinating book.' Journal of New Theatre Quarterly

Spis treści

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Note on texts; Introduction: circles of learning; 1. The space of the encyclopedia; 2. The idea of a theatre; 3. Tricks of vision, truths of discourse: illustration, ars combinatoria, and authority; 4. Holding the mirror up to nature?: the humanist theatre beside itself; 5. The show of learning and the performance of knowledge: humors, Epigrams, and 'an universal store'; 6. Francis Bacon's theatre of Orpheus: 'literate experience' and experimental science; Notes; Bibliography; Index.