Publicity and the Early Modern Stage: People Made Public

Description

What did publicity look like before the eighteenth century? What were its uses and effects, and around whom was it organized? The essays in this collection ask these questions of early modern London. Together, they argue that commercial theater was a vital engine in celebrity’s production. The men and women associated with playing―not just actors and authors, but playgoers, characters, and the extraordinary local figures adjunct to playhouse productions―introduced new ways of thinking about the function and meaning of fame in the period; about the networks of communication through which it spread; and about theatrical publics. Drawing on the insights of Habermasean public sphere theory and on the interdisciplinary field of celebrity studies, Publicity and the Early Modern Stage introduces a new and comprehensive look at early modern theories and experiences of publicity. Acknowledgments Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures Introduction Early Modern Celebrity Publics, the Public Sphere, and Celebrity Studies People Made Public Part I: Knowing Audiences and Theatrical Publics Othello’s Strange Celebrity: Race and Publicity in Early Modern Drama Strange Othello Local Characters Celebrity, Crowds, and Theatrical Audiences in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus Fame, Celebrity, and the Crowd Playing to the Crowd Acts of Condescension Coriolanus Among the Volscians Conclusion “Bootless are your thoughts”: Audience Expectation and Surprise in the Caroline Commercial Theater Part II: Affective Persons, Public Theatricalities Local Celebrities Onstage and Off Creatures of the Theater Scene Topical Plays About Ordinary People: Private Disputes in Public Places Multimedia Personhood and the Publicist John Taylor Politics in the Street Robert Armin’s “Blue John,” Early Modern Disability, and the Public Punchline Disability Jokes and Theatrical Memes Everybody’s Fool Doubling and Resurrection Across the Henriad Celebrity No-Show: The Great Eater of Kent Making Monstrous Celebrity Writing the Maw Part III: Bodies Public and Imaginary Bodies Public: The Roaring Girl and the Rise of Celebrity Any Body, Some Body, Every Body, No Body Two Prostheses Fictive Presence Desiring Moll Taste-Maker of the Market “There Present” Nobody’s Business Letters to No One Purchasing a Name Celebrity, Publicity, and Negation Jonson’s Ridicule of Shakespeare: Commodifying Drama in “To the Reader” of The Alchemist Jonson’s Reformation of Commerical Drama Shakespeare’s Audience of “Pretenders” Shakespeare the Witty Ignoramus Time’s Overthrow of Law in The Winter’ Tale Shakespeare as Autolycus Why Jonson Mocked Shakespeare in 1612 Afterword Author Index Subject Index