Enter The Body - Women and Representation on Shakespeare's Stage

Enter the Body offers a series of provocative case studies of the work women's bodies do on Shakespeare's intensely body-conscious stage. Rutter's topics are sex, death, race, gender, culture, politics, and the excessive performative body that exceeds the playtext it inhabits. As well as drawing upon vital primary documents from Shakespeare's day, Rutter offers close readings of women's performance's on stage and film in Britian today, from Peggy Ashcroft's (white) Cleopatra and Whoopi Goldberg's (whiteface) African Queen to Sally Dexter's languorous Helen and Alan Howard's raver 'Queen' of Troy.

List of contents

List of plates, Preface, Acknowledgements, 1 Body parts or parts for bodies: speculating on Cordelia, 2 Snatched bodies: Ophelia in the grave, 3 Shadowing Cleopatra: making whiteness strange, 4 Designs on Shakespeare: Troilus’s sleeve, Cressida’s glove, Helen’s placket, 5 Remembering Emilia: gossiping hussies, revolting housewives, Notes, Bibliography, Index

About the author

Carol Rutter is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Warwick, UK.

Summary

One of the most provocative writers on women's performances of Shakespeare on stage and film in Britain today, Rutter speculates on how the theatre `plays' women's bodies and how audiences read them.

Product details

• Authors: Carol Chillington Rutter, Rutter Carol Chillington
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 23.11.2000
• EAN: 9780415141642
• ISBN: 978-0-415-14164-2
• No. of pages: 240
• Weight: 294 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; English, The arts: general issues, PERFORMING ARTS / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Shakespeare, PERFORMING ARTS / Theater / General, Theatre Studies, Sex & sexuality, sex manuals, Performance Art, Sex and sexuality: advice and issues, Classic and pre-20th century plays, Shakespeare Plays, The arts: general topics, Relating to Shakespeare / Shakespearean