Magical Transformations on the Early Modern English Stage

by Lisa Hopkins, Helen Ostovich

Overview

Considering a variety of questions centering on magic and, or in, performance, this volume furthers the debate about the cultural work performed by representations of magic on the early modern English stage. Collectively the essays show that the idea of transformation applies not only to the objects and subjects of magic, but that the plays themselves can be seen as working to effect transformation in the ways that they challenge contemporary assumptions and stereotypes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472432889
Publisher:	Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Publication date:	10/28/2014
Series:	Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	NOOK Book
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Lisa Hopkins is Professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University and co-editor of Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association. Helen Ostovich is Professor Emeritus of English at McMaster University, Canada and co-editor of the journal Early Theatre.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Transformations and the Ideology of Witchcraft Staged Helen Ostovich and Lisa Hopkins

Part I Demons and Pacts

1 Magic and the Decline of Demons: A View from the Stage Barbara H. Traister

2 Who the Devil is in Charge? Mastery and the Faustian Pact on the Early Modern Stage Bronwyn Johnston

3 Danger in Words: Faustus, Slade, and the Demonologists

Part II Rites to Believe

4 "The Charm's Wound Up": Supernatural Ritual in Macbeth  Alisa Manninen

5 Demonising Macbeth  Verena Theile

6 Hermetic Miracles in The Winter's Tale  Jill Delsigne

Part III Learned Magic

7 "We ring this round with our invoking spells": Magic as Embedded Authorship in The Merry Devil of Edmonton  Peter Kirwan

8 Boiled Brains, 'Inward Pinches', and Alchemical Tempering in The Tempest  Jasmine Lellock

9 Profit and Delight? Magic and the Dreams of a Nation Lisa Hopkins

Part IV Local Witchcraft

10 Three Wax Images, Two Italian Gentleman, and One English Queen Brett D. Hirsch

11 'In good reporte and honest estimacion amongst her neighbours': Cunning Women in the Star Chamber and on the Stage in Early Modern England Judith Bonzol

12 'A witch, a queen, an old cozening quean!': Image Magic and Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor  Jessica Dell

13 'Gingerbread Progeny' in Bartholomew Fair  Helen Ostovich

14 'My poor fiddle is bewitched': Music, Magic, and the Theatre in The Witch of Edmonton and The Late Lancashire Witches  Andrew Loeb