Overview
- Focuses on Middle English biblical drama
- Considers onstage performance as well as performativity and identity more broadly
- Provides socio-political and cultural insights on the medieval period
Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages (TNMA)
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Skeletons in the Closet of Religious Dramas
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Representations of the Body in Middle English Biblical Drama combines epistemological enquiry, gender theory and Foucauldian concepts to investigate the body as a useful site for studying power, knowledge and truth. Intertwining the conceptualizations of violence and the performativity of gender identity and roles, Estella Ciobanu argues that studying violence in drama affords insights into the cultural and social aspects of the later Middle Ages. The text investigates these biblical plays through the perspective of the devil and offers a unique lens that exposes medieval disquiets about Christian teachings and the discourse of power. Through detailed primary source analysis and multidisciplinary scholarship, Ciobanu constructs a text that interrogates the significance of performance far beyond the stage.
Reviews
“Encouraging those who work in the domain to take a renewed perspective on the many forms of subjugation that these plays rehearse gives much food for thought as to how to tackle the parts of biblical drama that should cause critical discomfort. In this regard, it is a most welcome contribution to early drama studies.” (Sarah Brazil, Speculum, Vol. 95 (1), January, 2020)
“Ciobanu makes a bold attempt to look at the scriptural narrative, as presented in the mystery plays, from the point of view of the devil; the reader is challenged to consider familiar material in a new light … engaging and well-written.” (Elisabeth Dutton, Professor of Medieval English at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland)Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Estella Ciobanu is Associate Professor of English at Ovidius University of Constanţa, Romania. Her academic interests include iconization studies and gendered representations of the body in anatomo-medical practices and the arts. She has authored The Spectacle of the Body in Late Medieval England (2012) and The Body Spectacular in Middle English Theatre (2013).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Representations of the Body in Middle English Biblical Drama
Authors: Estella Ciobanu
Series Title: The New Middle Ages
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90918-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-90917-2Published: 11 August 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-08131-7Published: 22 December 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-90918-9Published: 31 July 2018
Series ISSN: 2945-5936
Series E-ISSN: 2945-5944
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVIII, 337
Topics: Medieval Literature, Drama, History of Religion