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Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England
0 - Default Title
Description
Early modern physiology held that the imagination and emotions were part of the body, and exerted a material impact on it, yet scholars of medicine and drama alike have not recognised the consequences of this idea. Plays, which alter our emotions and thought, simultaneously change us physically. This book argues that the power of the theater in early modern England, as well as the striking hostility to it, stems from the widely held contemporary idea that drama acted upon the body as well as the mind. In yoking together pharmacy and theater, this book offers a new model for understanding the relationship between texts and bodies. Just as bodies are constituted in part by the imaginative fantasies they consume, the theater's success (and notoriety) depends on its power over spectators' bodies. Drugs, which conflate concerns about unreliable appearances and material danger, evoked fascination and fear in this period by identifying a convergence point between the imagination and the body, the literary and the scientific, the magical and the rational. This book explores that same convergence point, and uses it to show the surprising physiological powers attributed to language, and especially to the embodied language of the theater.
Product details
- Edition:
- 1
- Number of Pages:
- 224
- Release Date:
- 2005-04-28
- Publication Date:
- 2005-02-17
- Publisher:
- OUP Oxford
- Languages:
- Original: English
- ISBN10:
- 019927083X
- ISBN13:
- 9780199270835
- GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
- [email protected]
- Weight:
- 453 g
- Height:
- 145 cm
- Width:
- 222 cm
- Thickness:
- 17 cm
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