Tag Archives: drama

Cambridge Society for Neo-Latin Studies Seminar

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Tuesday 1 March, 5.30pm, Junior Parlour, T Blue Boar, Trinity College

Sarah Knight (Leicester)

A fabulis ad veritatem: Latin Tragedy, Truth and Education in Early Modern England

 
In his Ash Wednesday sermon of 1582, Laurence Humphrey, head of Magdalen College, urged his Oxford congregation to make the transition ‘à Cothurno ad Cineres, à prophanis ad sacra, à fabulis ad ipsam veritatis inuestigationem & disciplinam’ (from tragic buskin to ashes, from the profane to the sacred, from stories to that same examination and practice of truth). Humphrey distinguishes between drama and sermon, between being a passive spectator and an active seeker of religious truth, but many authors of Latin tragedies in early modern England expected greater intellectual engagement from those who watched or read their works than Humphrey’s sermon perhaps implies. The context of delivery for Humphrey’s sermon was also the most active site of composition and performance of drama, and so a study of Latin tragedy in early modern England inevitably focuses first on the universities. Some examples taken both from Oxford and Cambridge, such as the work of Thomas Legge and William Alabaster, as well as plays written by its graduates who wrote for continental Catholic institutions, particularly Edmund Campion, show how college and university drama evolved into a rich didactic medium. These plays suggest that the staging and consumption of such drama was not just for entertainment – Humphrey uses the term ‘ludicra’ – in this period, although collective enjoyment could be part of their appeal, and in several cases their authors express concern about the impressionable young minds of the audience and the formative influence of curricular and other institutional activity on the performance of drama.

All are welcome. Wine is served during the discussion of the papers.

For other inquiries, please contact Andrew Taylor at awt24@cam.ac.uk.
More information here.

Graduate Lecture Series

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Screenshot 2016-02-04 10.52.49Friday 5th February, 1-2pm (GR06/07)                         ‘Let me honour your repentance’: Financial Excess and Repentance in Early Modern Drama                      Ezra Horbury

The early modern prodigal, who finds his ancestor in Luke 15.11­-32, is a character marked by excessive expenditure, rebellion, and riot. Most often a youth and almost exclusively male, the prodigal is one of the most popular archetypes in early modern drama. This type appears across scores of plays, such as Quicksilver of Eastward Ho, Young Lionel of The English Traveller, Bassanio of The Merchant of Venice, and both Hal and Falstaff of the Henry IVs. Prodigals were troubling, timely figures that variably reinforced and subverted a range of early modern mores. This lecture examines examples of the archetype at the height of its popularity in the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries in order to provide students with a preliminary but concrete understanding of prodigals, prodigality, and the social anxieties with which these characters engage.

While prodigal excess is frequently represented as socially disruptive, these plays also demonstrate that it cannot be unproblematically condemned. Excessive trespasses must be forgiven and the prodigal redeemed to restore social order, but distrust concerning the predictable nature of repentance besets these depictions of Christian closure. This lecture also explores the uneasiness present in Calvinist understandings of repentance and opens lines of inquiry for those who wish to interrogate early modern repentance on a broader level.

This lecture will also be of especial interest to those who wish to learn more about dynamics of authority and rebellion in the family, the morality of excess and moderation, and Calvinist thought in early modern drama and culture.
This lecture will be relevant to Part I students taking ‘Paper 4: English Literature and its Contexts, 1500­-1700’ and ‘Paper 5: Shakespeare’. For Part II students, it will be relevant to ‘Paper 7: Early Modern Drama 1588­-1642’. It may also be of interest to students taking ‘Paper 17: Shakespeare in Performance’.

IMAGE: EEBO, STC 597:06

Interdisciplines: Drama, Economics and Law in Early Modern England, 17 October 2015

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beere-bayting_crop2Trust Room, Fitzwilliam College
Conference fee: £25 (full), £10 (students/unwaged) – includes lunch, tea/coffee
Deadline: Monday 12 October 2015

Interdisciplines: Drama, Economics and Law in Early Modern England is a one-day colloquium which seeks to examine intersections between literature, law and economics in early modern England. As part of the broader, European Research Council-funded interdisciplinary project, Crossroads of Knowledge in Early Modern England: the Place of Literature, our speakers will be attentive to the epistemic intersections between drama and economy, drama and law: how did legal, social and economic practices of the time condition Renaissance drama? how did the early modern theatre respond to, and, in turn, shape the legal and economic life of the period? Our speakers are Maria Fusaro (Exeter); Quentin Skinner (QMUL), Becky Tomlin (Birkbeck), and Andy Wood (Durham). Papers will be followed by responses and Q&A sessions. The colloquium ends with a concluding panel chaired by Craig Muldrew.

Convenors:

Rachel E. Holmes, Subha Mukherji, Tim Stuart-Buttle, Elizabeth L. Swann, Koji Yamamoto

Speakers:

Maria Fusaro (University of Exeter)
Quentin Skinner (Queen Mary, University of London)
Rebecca Tomlin (Birkbeck, University of London),
Andy Wood (University of Durham)

Panel Chair:

Craig Muldrew (University of Cambridge).

Panel Members:

Adrian Leonard (University of Cambridge), others TBC

More information, programme and abstracts here.

Wenceslas Hollar, The Long View of London (1642), via Wikimedia Commons