Research Catalog

Clowning and Authorship in Early Modern Theatre

Title
Clowning and Authorship in Early Modern Theatre / Richard Preiss.
Author
Preiss, Richard
Publication
New York : Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Supplementary Content
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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library JFE 14-3770Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Subject
  • English drama > Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 > History and criticism
  • Fools and jesters in literature
  • Clowns in literature
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
Machine generated contents note: Introduction: the play is not the thing; 1. What audiences did; 2. Send in the clown; 3. Wiring Richard Tarlton; 4. Nobody's business; 5. Private practice; Epilogue: the principal verb.
Call Number
JFE 14-3770
ISBN
  • 9781107036574 (hardback)
  • 1107036577 (hardback)
LCCN
2013033961
OCLC
861211826
Author
Preiss, Richard, author.
Title
Clowning and Authorship in Early Modern Theatre / Richard Preiss.
Publisher
New York : Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Description
x, 287 pages ; 24 cm
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Summary
"To early modern audiences, the 'clown' was much more than a minor play character. A celebrity performer, he was a one-man sideshow whose interactive entertainments - face-pulling, farce interludes, jigs, rhyming contests with the crowd - were the main event. Clowning epitomised a theatre that was heterogeneous, improvised and participatory, and irreducible to dramatic texts. How, then, did those texts emerge? Why did playgoers buy books that deleted not only the clown, but them as well? Challenging the narrative that clowns were 'banished' by playwrights like Shakespeare and Jonson, Richard Preiss argues that clowns such as Richard Tarlton, Will Kemp and Robert Armin actually made playwrights possible - bridging, through the publication of their routines, the experience of 'live' and scripted performance. Clowning and Authorship tells the story of how, as the clown's presence decayed into print, he bequeathed the new categories around which theatre would organise: the author, and the actor"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Research Call Number
JFE 14-3770
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