Money and Magic in Early Modern Drama

Description

This volume considers three powerful ideological forces in early modern England: money, magic and the theatre. With the authorization of usury, financial value was developing into an independent, effective power. The mysterious, invisible nature of money’s power struck many contemporaries as magical and contributed to the hysteria behind the great witch-hunts. At the same time, the public theatre emerged as a popular medium well-suited to representing the powers of magic. All the essays in this book examine the convergence of these three forces in a wide range of early modern drama. Part One considers the works of a broad array of figures ranging from Plautus through John Lyly to Christopher Marlowe – discussing plays such as Midas, The Alchemist and The Jew of Malta – while remaining tightly focussed on the nexus of money and magic. While Part Two concentrates on Shakespeare, whose diagnosis of the relations between finance, witchcraft and the stage is particularly acute in plays such as Timon of Athens, The Tempest and A Winter’s Tale. The volume is especially timely in the current era of financial deregulation and derivatives, which often seem just as mysterious and occult in their operations as did the burgeoning financial system of 16th-century London. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Notes on contributors Introduction David Hawkes 1 The perverse eco-politics of object-oriented criticism: Money, magical thinking and the new materialism Daniel Vitkus 2 The vice of collecting money in Mankind William Casey Caldwell 3 Cozening queens and phony fairies: Fairy counterfeits in early modern drama Kaitlyn Culliton 4 The sign of Abel Drugger: Fake news, finance and flattery in Ben Jonson’s ‘dotages’ David Hawkes 5 Coins, counterfeit and queer threat in The Comedy of Errors Melissa Vipperman-Cohen 6 The magic of bounty in Timon of Athens: Gold, society, nature Hugh Grady 7 ‘An Antony that grew the more by reaping’: The immeasurable bounty of the sharing economy in Cleopatra’s Egypt Kemal Onur Toker 8 Woman, warrior or witch? Fetishizing Margaret of Anjou on the early modern stage Rebecca Steinberger 9 ‘The stone is mine’: Theatre, witchcraft and ventriloquism in The Winter’s Tale Ja Young Jeon Index