Theatrical Milton : : Politics and Poetics of the Staged Body / / Brendan Prawdzik.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Complete eBook-Package 2017
• VerfasserIn: Prawdzik, Brendan,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Edinburgh Critical Studies in Renaissance Culture : ECSRC
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (264 p.) :; 15 B/W illustrations

Explains the presence of theatre in John Milton and its centrality to his politics and poetryTheatrical Milton brings coherence to the presence of theatre in John Milton through the concept of theatricality. In this book, 'theatricality' identifies a discursive field entailing the rhetorical strategies and effects of framing a given human action, including speech and writing, as an act of theatre. Political and theological cultures in seventeenth-century England developed a treasury of representational resources in order to stage-to satirize and, above all, to de-legitimate-rhetors of politics, religion, and print. At the core of Milton's works is a contradictory relation to theatre that has neither been explained nor properly explored. This book changes the terms of scholarly discussion and discovers how the social structures of theatre afforded Milton resources for poetic and polemical representation and uncovers the precise contours of Milton's interest in theatre and drama.Key FeaturesFocuses on rhetoric and representation while employing thick historical contextualization and selected theoryExamines Milton's theatricality in the contexts of rhetorical culture, gender and anti-theatricality, popular literatures of the early 1640s, paradigms of worship, optics and horticulture, and the Quaker body in print and visual cultureDemonstrates how theatricality cuts across Milton's genres

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Series Editor's Preface -- Introduction: Theatrical Milton -- 1. Speaking Body: The Vacation Exercise and Paradise Lost -- 2. Printless Feet: Early Lyrics and the Maske -- 3. Bending the Fool: Animadversions and the Early Prose -- 4. Theatre of Vegetable Love: Paradise Lost -- 5. Passion's Looking-Glass: Samson Agonistes -- Epilogue: A Systemic Corpus -- Works Cited -- Index