Dynamic Matter : : Transforming Renaissance Objects / / ed. by Jennifer Linhart Wood.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
• MitwirkendeR: Bertolet, Anna Riehl,; Boeckeler, Erika Mary,; Howell, Naomi,; Philbrick, Emily E. F.,; Schoel, Josie,; Shmygol, Maria,; Test, Edward McLean,; Weinberg, Abbie,; Williams, Sarah F.,; Wood, Jennifer Linhart,
• HerausgeberIn: Wood, Jennifer Linhart,
• Place / Publishing House: University Park, PA : : Penn State University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Cultural Inquiries in English Literature, 1400–1700
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (290 p.)

Dynamic Matter investigates the life histories of Renaissance objects. Eschewing the critical tendency to study how objects relate to human needs and desires, this work foregrounds the objects themselves, demonstrating their potential to transform their environments as they travel across time and space.Integrating early modern material theories with recent critical approaches in Actor-Network Theory and object-oriented ontology, this volume extends Aristotle’s theory of dynameos—which conceptualizes matter as potentiality—and applies it to objects featured in early modern texts such as Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, and William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Individual chapters explore the dynameos of matter by examining its manifestations in particular forms: combs are inscribed with words and brushed through human hair; feathers are incorporated into garments and artwork; Prince Rupert’s glasswork drops explode; a whale becomes animated by the power of a magical bracelet; and books are drowned. These case studies highlight the potentiality matter itself possesses and that which it activates in other matter. A theorization of objects grounded in Renaissance materialist thought, Dynamic Matter examines the richness of things themselves; the larger, multiple, and changing networks in which things circulate; and the networks created by these transformative objects.In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Anna Riehl Bertolet, Erika Mary Boeckeler, Naomi Howell, Emily E. F. Philbrick, Josie Schoel, Maria Shmygol, Edward McLean Test, Abbie Weinberg, and Sarah F. Williams.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Transformative Materiality and Renaissance Dynamics -- Part I Objects Within / Without the Body -- Chapter 1 “Farre Fetched and Deare Bought” The Global Cosmetic Exchange Between Elizabeth I, Melike Safiye Sultan, and the Kira Esperanza Malchi -- Chapter 2 Comb Poems -- Chapter 3 Variable Vestments and Clothing Conversions: Piecing Out the Past in Tudor Exeter -- Part II Networking Objects -- Chapter 4 Bird- People, Utopias, Arte Plumaria: The Influence of Native American Feathers on Renaissance Literature and Culture -- Chapter 5 Needlework Patterns on the Move: Traveling Toward (Re)incarnation -- Chapter 6 “Whose Least Part Crackt, the Whole Does Fly” The Explosive Case of Prince Rupert’s Drops -- Part III Staging Properties -- Chapter 7 Traveling Music and Theatrics: Jemmy LaRoche’s “Raree Show” -- Chapter 8 Protean Objects in William Percy’s The Aphrodysial or Sea-Feast -- Chapter 9 “I’ll Drown My Book” Prospero’s Grimoire, Adrift -- Selected Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index