scholarly journals “Take (Meta)physic, pomp”: King Lear and (Dis)oriented Ontology

ROMARD ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 19-38
Author(s):  
M. Burdick Smith
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
King Lear ◽  
Early Modern Drama ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
Object Oriented Ontology ◽  
Insight Into

This essay uses Object-Oriented Ontology, a posthumanist theoretical model, to explore how King Lear’s use of and relation to objects can provide insight into his characterization. This essay provides a model for scrutinizing the role of objects—whether animate or inanimate—in performances of early modern drama; furthermore, it argues that King Lear’s use of objects reveals a consistent refusal to understand others, which upsets a redemptive arc in the play. To that end, the article proposes an ethical model—demonstrated by Kent—that responds to the play’s otherwise desolate worldview.

scholarly journals Not-Shakespeare and the Shakespearean Ghost

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kirwan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Drama ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
Current Shift ◽  
A Current ◽  
Selection Of

Drawing on the work of Marvin Carlson and Susan Bennett, this chapter interrogates the role of the broader canon of early modern drama, usually Jacobean, in shaping contemporary Shakespearean performance. Shakespeare and ‘not-Shakespeare’ are part of a binary that treats not-Shakespeare as both a supplement to the Shakespeare canon and a perversion or antithesis of it. This chapter analyses criticism of recent productions of Cardenio and ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore to show how a dominant interpretative paradigm based on Shakespeare skews readings of both Shakespeare and not-Shakespeare, yoking them to a limited selection of values and aesthetic priorities. Yet while not-Shakespeare remains defined by a negative, this chapter argues that a current shift in theatrical cultures is blurring previously established boundaries to productive effect.

scholarly journals Necropolitical Resistance in Early Modern Drama

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madison Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Early Modern Drama ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
Revenge Tragedy ◽  
Contested Space ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Modern Era

Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy has been widely-read by the academic community, but not always for its own sake. Its influence on the Revenge Tragedy genre, and Shakespeare's Hamlet, have been common topics, sometimes at the expense of readings that engage with the play itself. This thesis continues a tradition of applying the ideas of Michel Foucault to the Early Modern era in order to interrogate the role of power, knowledge, and sovereignty. This thesis explores the way that Michel Foucault's theory of biopolitics, and the related concepts of necropolitics and necroresistance, create significant new ways of understanding the characters and themes of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. I first examine Bel-Imperia's presence in the text, as both a woman and a political pawn, and argue that her physical body exists in a contested space, serving as both a location for control and a means of resistance. By reinterpreting her role in the revenge narrative and her suicide through a political lens, we can more fully appreciate her violent actions as expressions of agency in pursuit of a calculated goal. Additionally, when we look at the stories of Hieronimo and Horatio through a necropolitical lens, it foregrounds the centrality of class in the conflict of the play. Through a close reading of Horatio's murder, I argue that Horatio and Hieronimo represent the threat of social mobility to the insular aristocratic class embodied by Lorenzo and Balthazar, and Horatio's murder serves as a reassertion of absolute sovereign control. Hieronimo's violent actions carry different implications when we are able to read them as not only acts of vengeance, but also, to some extent, of revolution. Ultimately, I argue that applying biopolitical theories to The Spanish Tragedy, and other plays from the Early Modern era, presents scholars with an opportunity to differently appreciate the relationship between agency and violence, and make sense of the seemingly senseless violence that often characterizes these works.

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