Shakespeare Among the Animals - Nature and Society in the Drama of Early Modern England

Shakespeare Among the Animals examines the role of animal-metaphor in the Shakespeare stage, particularly as such metaphor serves to underwrite various forms of social difference. Working through texts such as Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream , Jonson's Volpone , and Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside , different chapters of the study focus upon the allegedly natural character of femininity, masculinity, and ethnicity, while a fourth chapter considers the nature of the natural world itself as it appears on the Renaissance stage. Addressing each of these topics in turn, Shakespeare Among the Animals explores the notions of cultural order that underlie early modern conceptions of the natural world, and the ideas of nature implicit in early modern social practice.

List of contents

Acknowledgements A Note on Texts and Translations Introduction: How to Do Things With Animals Shakespeare's Beastly Buggers The Cuckoo and the Capon Dead Parrot Sketch Animal Fun for Everyone Further Reading Notes Bibliography

About the author

BRUCE BOEHRER is Professor of English literature at Florida State University. He is the author of Monarchy and Incest in Renaissance England and The Fury of Men's Gullets: Ben Jonson and the Digestive Canal along with numerous scholarly articles. He is also founding editor of the semiannual Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies.

Summary

Shakespeare Among the Animals examines the role of animal-metaphor in the Shakespeare stage, particularly as such metaphor serves to underwrite various forms of social difference.

Product details

• Authors: B Boehrer, B. Boehrer, Bruce Thomas Boehrer Boehrer
• Publisher: Palgrave UK
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 15.04.2002
• EAN: 9781349387441
• ISBN: 978-1-349-38744-1
• No. of pages: 224
• Series: Early Modern Cultural Studies; Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500-1700; Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500-1700; Early Modern Cultural Studies; Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700; Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; B, Poetry, Theatre Studies, Literary studies: poetry & poets, Literature: history & criticism, Poetry and Poetics, European Literature, Theater—History, Theatre History, British literature, British and Irish Literature, Early Modern/Renaissance Literature, Early Modern and Renaissance Literature, Literature, Modern, Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection