Staging Britain's Past

Pre-Roman Britain in Early Modern Drama

Kim Gilchrist (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

296 Seiten

2022
The Arden Shakespeare (Verlag)
978-1-350-23282-2 (ISBN)

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Staging Britain's Past is the first study of the early modern performance of Britain's pre-Roman history. The mythic history of the founding of Britain by the Trojan exile Brute and the subsequent reign of his descendants was performed through texts such as Norton and Sackville’s Gorboduc, Shakespeare’s King Lear and Cymbeline, as well as civic pageants, court masques and royal entries such as Elizabeth I’s 1578 entry to Norwich. Gilchrist argues for the power of performed history to shape early modern conceptions of the past, ancestry, and national destiny, and demonstrates how the erosion of the Brutan histories marks a transformation in English self-understanding and identity.

When published in 1608, Shakespeare’s King Lear claimed to be a “True Chronicle History”. Lear was said to have ruled Britain centuries before the Romans, a descendant of the mighty Trojan Brute who had conquered Britain and slaughtered its barbaric giants. But this was fake history. Shakespeare’s contemporaries were discovering that Brute and his descendants, once widely believed as proof of glorious ancient origins, were a mischievous medieval invention.

Offering a comprehensive account of the extraordinary theatrical tradition that emerged from these Brutan histories and the reasons for that tradition’s disappearance, this study gathers all known evidence of the plays, pageants and masques portraying Britain’s ancient rulers. Staging Britain's Past reveals how the loss of England’s Trojan origins is reflected in plays and performances from Gorboduc’s powerful invocation of history to Cymbeline’s elegiac erosion of all notions of historical truth.

Kim Gilchrist is Disglair Lecturer in English Literature at Cardiff University, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Roehampton, UK. Previously, he worked as a Teaching Fellow and completed a PhD in early modern drama at the University of Roehampton, UK, where he holds an Honorary Research Fellowship. He has taught on Shakespeare and early modern literature at Cardiff, Roehampton, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and Central School of Speech and Drama.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Note on texts

Introduction

Chapter One: Geoffrey of Monmouth and Etiological Erosion

Chapter Two: Staging Brutan Origins (1486–1600)

Chapter Three: Reading Brutan Erosion (1604–1608)

Chapter Four: The Diminution of Brutan Time (1610–1637)

Conclusions
Works Cited
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	06.10.2022
Reihe/Serie	Arden Studies in Early Modern Drama
Zusatzinfo	3 bw illus
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	129 x 198 mm
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
ISBN-10	1-350-23282-3 / 1350232823
ISBN-13	978-1-350-23282-2 / 9781350232822
Zustand	Neuware