Emblems of Mortality: Iconographic Experiments in Shakespeare's Theatre
In our own age, the engagement with death has been discretely narrowed into a brief process of formal commemoration and burial, but in Shakespeare's time it was ritualized into the very fabric of everyday life, where the reminders of death, the journey to the grave, and the moment of expiry were all central to the cultural engagement with mortality in post-Reformation England. Inevitably, this way of seeing the world impacted the writing of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, not only in relation to the intellectual content of the drama but with regard to its visual impressions as well. Emblems of Mortality explores the relationship between Shakespeare's theatre and popular memento mori and funereal iconography of the Renaissance, combining cultural studies and historicism with semiotic analysis of period iconography. Through close reading of Elizabethan signs and sign systems with attention to historical context, the work seeks to demonstrate the quality and intention of some of Shakespeare's theatrical designs in a way that will appeal to scholars of drama and students of Shakespeare's work.
"1112286998"
Emblems of Mortality: Iconographic Experiments in Shakespeare's Theatre
In our own age, the engagement with death has been discretely narrowed into a brief process of formal commemoration and burial, but in Shakespeare's time it was ritualized into the very fabric of everyday life, where the reminders of death, the journey to the grave, and the moment of expiry were all central to the cultural engagement with mortality in post-Reformation England. Inevitably, this way of seeing the world impacted the writing of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, not only in relation to the intellectual content of the drama but with regard to its visual impressions as well. Emblems of Mortality explores the relationship between Shakespeare's theatre and popular memento mori and funereal iconography of the Renaissance, combining cultural studies and historicism with semiotic analysis of period iconography. Through close reading of Elizabethan signs and sign systems with attention to historical context, the work seeks to demonstrate the quality and intention of some of Shakespeare's theatrical designs in a way that will appeal to scholars of drama and students of Shakespeare's work.
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Emblems of Mortality: Iconographic Experiments in Shakespeare's Theatre

Emblems of Mortality: Iconographic Experiments in Shakespeare's Theatre

by Clayton G. MacKenzie
Emblems of Mortality: Iconographic Experiments in Shakespeare's Theatre

Emblems of Mortality: Iconographic Experiments in Shakespeare's Theatre

by Clayton G. MacKenzie

Hardcover

$102.00 
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Overview

In our own age, the engagement with death has been discretely narrowed into a brief process of formal commemoration and burial, but in Shakespeare's time it was ritualized into the very fabric of everyday life, where the reminders of death, the journey to the grave, and the moment of expiry were all central to the cultural engagement with mortality in post-Reformation England. Inevitably, this way of seeing the world impacted the writing of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, not only in relation to the intellectual content of the drama but with regard to its visual impressions as well. Emblems of Mortality explores the relationship between Shakespeare's theatre and popular memento mori and funereal iconography of the Renaissance, combining cultural studies and historicism with semiotic analysis of period iconography. Through close reading of Elizabethan signs and sign systems with attention to historical context, the work seeks to demonstrate the quality and intention of some of Shakespeare's theatrical designs in a way that will appeal to scholars of drama and students of Shakespeare's work.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780761816607
Publisher: University Press of America
Publication date: 04/12/2000
Pages: 216
Product dimensions: 6.36(w) x 9.26(h) x 0.84(d)

About the Author

Clayton G. MacKenzie is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 List of Plates Chapter 2 Acknowledgements Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 Emblems of an English Eden Chapter 5 Iconic Monsters in Paradise Chapter 6 De Morte et Amore Chapter 7 Hamlet and the Death's Head Chapter 8 Experiments with the danse macabre Chapter 9 Epilogue Chapter 10 Plates Chapter 11 References Chapter 12 Index
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