Martyrs and players in early modern England : tragedy, religion and violence on stage /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Anderson, David K., 1978- author.
Imprint:Farnham, Surrey ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, [2014]
Description:x, 241 pages ; 24 cm.
Language:English
Series:Studies in performance and early modern drama
Studies in performance and early modern drama.
Subject:English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism.
English drama -- 17th century -- History and criticism.
English drama (Tragedy) -- History and criticism.
Violence in literature.
English drama.
English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan.
English drama (Tragedy)
Violence in literature.
Tragödie.
Frühneuenglisch.
Gewalt.
Christentum.
Märtyrer.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/10144246
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9781472428288 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1472428285 (hardcover : alk. paper)
9781472428295 (ebook)
9781472428301 (epub)
1472428307 (electronic bk.)
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:Focusing on Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Webster and John Milton, 'Martyrs and Players in Early Modern England' argues that the English tragedians reflected a response of the society to acts of religious violence. David Anderson explores a link between the unstable emotional response of society to religious executions in the Tudor-Stuart period, and the revival of tragic drama as a major cultural form for the first time since classical antiquity. Placing John Foxe at the center of his historical argument, he argues that Foxe's Book of Martyrs exerted a profound effect on the social conscience of English Protestantism in his own time and for the next century. While scholars have in recent years discussed the impact of Foxe and the martyrs on the period's literature, this book is the first to examine how these most vivid symbols of Reformation-era violence influenced the makers of tragedy. As the persecuting and the persecuted churches collided over the martyr's body, Anderson posits, stress fractures ran through the culture and into the playhouse; in their depictions of violence, the early modern tragedians focused on the ethical confrontation between collective power and the individual sufferer. 'Martyrs and Players in Early Modern England' sheds new light on the particular emotional energy of Tudor-Stuart tragedy, and helps explain why the genre reemerged at this time.
Standard no.:40023995556