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Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England
Tanya Pollard
224 pages
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216x138mm
978-0-19-927083-5
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Hardback
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17 February 2005
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This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.
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- Ground-breaking and interdisciplinarity, this book links early modern theatre and medicine
- Presents original research into early modern drugs, medicines, and poisons
- Offers a new theory of drama's perceived power over the body in early modern England
Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England asks why Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were so preoccupied with drugs and poisons and, at a deeper level, why both critics and supporters of the theater, as well as playwrights themselves, so frequently adopted a chemical vocabulary to describe the effects of the theater on audiences. Drawing upon original medical and literary research, Pollard shows that the potency of the link between drugs and plays in the period demonstrates a model of drama radically different than our own, a model in which plays exert a powerful impact on spectators' bodies as well as minds.
Early modern physiology held that the imagination and emotions were part of the body, and exerted a material impact on it, yet scholars of medicine and drama alike have not recognised the consequences of this idea. Plays, which alter our emotions and thought, simultaneously change us physically. This book argues that the power of the theater in early modern England, as well as the striking hostility to it, stems from the widely held contemporary idea that drama acted upon the body as well as the mind. In yoking together pharmacy and theater, this book offers a new model for understanding the relationship between texts and bodies. Just as bodies are constituted in part by the imaginative fantasies they consume, the theater's success (and notoriety) depends on its power over
spectators' bodies. Drugs, which conflate concerns about unreliable appearances and material danger, evoked fascination and fear in this period by identifying a convergence point between the imagination and the body, the literary and the scientific, the magical and the rational. This book explores that same convergence point, and uses it to show the surprising physiological powers attributed to language, and especially to the embodied language of the theater.Readership: Scholars and students of early modern drama and history.
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Tanya Pollard, Assistant Professor of English Literature at Montclair State University
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"thought-provoking and important...a genuinely illuminating book...It gives a fresh and provocative set of ideas to bring to bear...and for that it deserves high praise." - Matthew Steggle, Notes and Queries, Volume 252, Number 3
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1.: "Unnatural and Horrid Physic": Pharmaceutical Theatre in Jonson and Webster
2.: "A Thing Like Death": Shakespeare's Narcotic Theatre
3.: "Polluted with Counterfeit Colours": Cosmetic Theatre
4.: "Kiss His Lips to Death": Poisonous Seductions in Massinger and Middleton
5.: The Vulnerable Ear: Hamlet's Poisonous Theatre
Epilogue: Theatre's Antidotes
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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