Format:
1 online resource (286 pages)
ISBN:
9789401202435
Series Statement:
Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, 93 v.v. 93
Content:
In what sense did Shakespeare's representation of the Weird Sisters participate in the rewriting of village witchcraft? Was it likely to "encourage the Sword"? Did opera's specific medial conditions offer Verdi special opportunities to justify the presence of stage witches more than three centuries later? How valid is the parallel between 19th century opera and the voyeurism of madhouse spectacle? Was Shakespeare's play really engaged in the project of exorcizing Queen Elizabeth's cultural memory? What does Verdi's chorus of Scottish refugees have to do with shifting representations of 'the people'?These are among the questions tackled in this study. It provides the first in-depth comparison of Shakespeare's and Verdi's Macbeth that is written expressly from the perspective of current Shakespearean criticism whilst striving to do justice to the topic's musicological dimension at the same time. Exploring to what extent the play's matrix of possible readings is distinct from Verdi's two operatic versions, the book seeks to relate such differences both to the historical contexts of the works' geneses and to their respective medial conditions. In doing so, it pays particular attention to shifting negotiations of witchcraft, gender, madness, and kingship. The study eventually broadens its discussion to consider other Shakespearean plays and their operatic offshoots, reflecting on some possible relations between historical and medial difference.
Content:
Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preliminaries -- Introduction -- Travelling between two nations -- Two itineraries -- 'Mutilated, transformed, perverted, and abused' -- An internal sound-track -- Too fantastic for words alone -- The untidy bard -- 1. Paltering in multiple senses: witchcraft, gender, madness I -- I pray you, remember the village -- '…where God beginnes iustlie to strike by his lawfull Lieutennentes' -- 'Killing swine' -- Mothers and monarchs -- Shakespeare and the demonologists -- 2. Fantastical creatures: witchcraft, gender, madness II -- '…in the existence of whom today surely no person places his faith' -- A 'monstrous union' -- Rhythms, not mothers -- Out-pritcharding Pritchard? -- Framing madness -- Opera and the madhouse -- Gendering madness -- Madness made musical -- Framing Lady Macbeth -- Hearing voices -- Gendering madness, again -- Battling selves -- 3. Restoration and its discontents -- '…to flatter James I' -- Plotting destruction -- The touchable king -- '…a dangerous example' -- Resistance -- The people's voice(s) -- Confusion's masterpieces -- '…surprisingly little martial colour' -- '…pleased to portray him as innocent' -- Exonerated through their absences -- Enter the tenor -- Closure -- Second thoughts -- 4. Shakespeare, opera, difference -- Taking stock -- Garrick's proper medium: historical and medial difference I -- Undone or envoiced: historical and medial difference II -- Postscript -- Works cited.
Note:
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9789042018877
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe ISBN 9789042018877
Language:
English
URL:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kxp/detail.action?docID=556658
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