Staging Britain's PastAuthor :
Hardback
Published : Thursday 8 April 2021
Description
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 Sackvilleâ?Ts Gorboduc, Shakespeareâ?Ts King Lear and Cymbeline, as well as civic pageants, court masques and royal entries such as Elizabeth Iâ?Ts 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, Shakespeareâ?Ts King Lear claimed to be a â?oTrue Chronicle Historyâ??. 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. Shakespeareâ?Ts 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 traditionâ?Ts disappearance, this study gathers all known evidence of the plays, pageants and masques portraying Britainâ?Ts ancient rulers. Staging Britain's Past reveals how the loss of Englandâ?Ts Trojan origins is reflected in plays and performances from Gorboducâ?Ts powerful invocation of history to Cymbelineâ?Ts elegiac erosion of all notions of historical truth.
You may also like ...
by
Hardback
08 Apr 2021
Theatre studies
€99.45
Extended stock – Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Hardback
23 May 2024
Childrens / Teenage fiction: General, modern and contemporary fiction
€15.20
Extended stock – Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Hardback
28 Mar 2024
Childrens / Teenage fiction: General, modern and contemporary fiction
€15.20
Extended stock – Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Paperback
03 Mar 2022
Childrens picture books
€9.35
Extended stock – Dispatch 5-7 days
Reviews