The Early Modern Corpse and Shakespeare's Theatre
Susan Zimmerman
Abstract
This book explores the relationship of the public theatre to the question of what constituted the ‘dead’ in early modern English culture within a theoretical framework that makes use of history, psychoanalysis and anthropology. The author argues that concepts of the corpse as a semi-animate, generative and indeterminate entity were deeply rooted in medieval religious culture. Such concepts ran counter to early modern discourses that sought to harden categorical distinctions between body/spirit, animate/inanimate – in particular, the attacks of Reformists on the materiality of ‘dead’ idols, and ... More
Keywords: public theatre, dead, psychoanalysis, corpse, medieval religious culture, Reformists, Shakespeare, anthropology, semi-animate entity, idols
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2005 | Print ISBN-13: 9780748621033 |
| Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: March 2012 | DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621033.001.0001 |
