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Performing Disability in Early Modern English Drama

Palgrave Macmillan

Editors:

  • Investigates the relationship between disability and performance in early modern English literature
  • Suggests methodologies for interpreting early modern disability in performance
  • Theorizes the staging of particular disabilities within their historical and literary contexts while considering the changes in the performance of disability between the early modern period and our own

Part of the book series: Literary Disability Studies (LIDIST)

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Table of contents (14 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
  2. Introduction

    • Leslie C. Dunn
    Pages 1-27
  3. Disability as a Metaphor in Dramatic Literature

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 159-159
    2. Enabling Rabies in King Lear

      • Avi Mendelson
      Pages 161-183
    3. Limping and Lameness on the Early Modern Stage

      • Susan Anderson
      Pages 185-207
  4. Back Matter

    Pages 319-327

About this book

Performing Disability in Early Modern English Drama investigates the cultural work done by early modern theatrical performances of disability. Proffering an expansive view of early modern disability in performance, the contributors suggest methodologies for finding and interpreting it in unexpected contexts. The volume also includes essays on disabled actors whose performances are changing the meanings of disability in Shakespeare for present-day audiences. By combining these two areas of scholarship, this text makes a unique intervention in early modern studies and disability studies alike. Ultimately, the volume generates a conversation that locates and theorizes the staging of particular disabilities within their historical and literary contexts while considering continuity and change in the performance of disability between the early modern period and our own. 

Reviews

“Dunn offers here a substantial contribution both to early modern disability studies and to performance studies. With nuance and care, these essays offer solid readings of canonical and non-canonical examples of early modern texts portraying disability: from ballads, to medical texts; from anti-theatrical pamphlets, to Renaissance drama. Throughout, the contributors’ focus on disability performance, in all its varying complexities, collapses these sixteenth-century texts with twenty-first-century concerns, which makes Dunn’s volume both innovative and intriguing.” (David Houston Wood, Distinguished Professor of English, North Michigan University, USA)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Vassar College, Poughskeepsie, USA

    Leslie C. Dunn

About the editor

Leslie C. Dunn is Professor of English at Vassar College, USA, where she also teaches in the Women’s Studies, Medieval/Renaissance Studies, and Media Studies programs. She co-edited two interdisciplinary collections, Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture (1994) and Gender and Song in Early Modern England (2014). Her research and teaching interests include Shakespeare and early modern drama, gender studies, and disability studies. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Performing Disability in Early Modern English Drama

  • Editors: Leslie C. Dunn

  • Series Title: Literary Disability Studies

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57208-2

  • 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), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-57207-5Published: 05 January 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-57210-5Published: 06 January 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-57208-2Published: 04 January 2021

  • Series ISSN: 2947-7409

  • Series E-ISSN: 2947-7417

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 327

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 2 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Early Modern/Renaissance Literature, Fiction, Drama, Performing Arts

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access