Dance in Elizabethan and Jacobean England was a practice closely linked to the notion of power, understood both from a political point of view – especially in relation to courtly dances – and from a ...gender perspective – as regards popular dances in particular. The purpose of this article is to conduct a linguistic analysis of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night 1.3, where two secondary characters, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch, compete for the woman they both love – countess Olivia – by displaying absurd terpsichorean skills. With the support of conversation analysis and cognitive linguistics, this article underlines how the concept of power (intended both as man-man and man-woman relationship) is expressed at the linguistic level with a series of lexical and morphosyntactic strategies in the discourse about Renaissance dances.
In Twelfth Night (1601-02), the pressure to enforce a comedic ending competes with problematic and overtly abusive behaviors towards certain characters, particularly the steward Malvolio, who is ...identified as a target for scapegoating by a persecuting group. As Malvolio is subject to mounting pressures to take in the projections of the group, the mistreatment levied against him gains in cruelty, culminating with his imprisonment in a dark room. While the "pranksters" seek to drive him mad, the figures in power ensure their own narcissistically satisfying ending, at the expense of those stripped of control and dignity. The role of the audience becomes a complex matter by the end, as applauding a problematic play meant to be funny invites a degree of collusion with those who would enforce scapegoating dynamics.
Beginning in 1587, all theatrical companies were required to make weekly donations to local poor in exchange for permission to perform in London's suburbs. While robust networks of charity were ...probably more vital than ever to the social welfare of London and its citizens, the Reformation had disrupted previous forms of benevolence, giving way for new opportunities and new religious justifications for these practices. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (c. 1601) reflects and underscores both the economic and religious prerogatives of charity for its audiences. Staged as part of the year's Christmastide revels, the play takes part in seasonal religious practices and gift-giving and emphasizes the need for individuals to live in comity with one another. Its message auspiciously coincided with its namesake. The feast of Epiphany, or Twelfth Day, commemorates the revelation of Christ to the gentiles , and sermons throughout this season typically exposited the value of charity.
The characters of Twelfth Night are both memorable and engaging and it is through their funny, and at times bitter, interplay that we experience the peculiar world of Shakespeare's Illyria. This ...study begins with a introduction to the concept of "characters" on the early-modern stage before proceeding to a textual analysis of each of the main characters in the play, looking at how what they say and do, and what is said about them, creates the illusion of "character". Each chapter also contains a brief account of key performances by actors on stage and in film.
This paper explores how target-audience expectations and generic limitations on modern, mass-culture adaptations of Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night mould the characterization of his officious ...steward Malvolio, and dictate the degree of centrality that his subplot holds in each different version. A trans-generic application of Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan’s work on characterization will expose how the character of Malvolio is constructed and presented, first in the original play and then in three modern adaptations of Twelfth Night into different popular genres. The works selected for contrastive analysis with the original play each represent different generic fields found on today’s mass-culture market – romance fiction, teen cinema and the web-comic. Respectively, they are: The Madness of Love, a contemporary romance novel by Katharine Davies, published in 2005; She’s the Man, a Hollywood teen film directed by Andy Fickman in 2006; and a web-comic retelling of Twelfth Night by Mya Lixian Gosling, which was published on her website Good Tickle-Brain Shakespeare in 2014.
On the night of January 5, in certain areas of southern Tuscany, a
costumed, singing troupe of characters visits residents' homes,
expecting to be fed and feted in a folk custom that has recurred in
...the region for centuries. This is the Befanata, a mumming tradition
centered in Tuscany, whose main character-the Befana-is a kindly
old woman or grandmotherly witch who delivers toys, candies, and
gifts. Part of the Christmas season, the Befana is familiar in some
form in much of Italy, but very little has been written about her,
despite sustained interest in European mumming traditions in
general. The Pigitliano Befanata is distinct in its emphasis on
song and strong in its richly symbolic use of food, which is not
only consumed at each home but is also carried away as a gift. The
characters who make up the squad are unique to the Italian
practice. They always include the Befana and her husband, the
Befano, but other members of the befanotti vary from place
to place over time. Siporin combines fieldwork and archival
evidence to introduce the Befanata and its historical and social
contexts: what it is, what it means, and how it feels. The
Befana Is Returning is a deeply researched, deftly insightful
presentation of this living tradition that adds a large missing
piece to the array of contemporary ethnographic scholarship on
mumming.
Phenomenological practice is used to observe how media-specific interfaces with consciousness condition the temporal experience of Shakespeare. By focusing on the phenomenology of a short but dense ...comedic passage, I observe the crucial importance of time and timing to comic delivery and reception across media. Three elements converge in this inquiry: (1) the temporal properties of each medium; (2) the temporal characteristics of consciousness understood phenomenologically; and (3) the embodied and linguistic features of jokes and witty exchanges. According to this model, getting the Shakespearean joke in a read play-text, live performance, or filmed/digital rendering is dependent on media-specific properties which promote differing styles of comic timing and temporally inflected interpretations. Shakespearean media and their interfaces with consciousness structure time in fundamentally different ways - and I argue that it is through such temporal movements that each medium conducts its unique phenomenological charge. Thus, the intersection of dedicated interface time constraints aligned with the reader's multiple levels of time consciousness condition each encounter with Shakespeare's time-sensitive comic structures.
AD Editor Neil Spiller investigates the long‐running ‘Temple Island’ project by Archigram member Michael Webb. Honed over decades, it is beautifully transcribed, creating one of the great enigmatic ...works of this era, and much revered and respected by any architect with an interest in drawing, the rules of perspective and sheer artifice. Spiller writes a paean to both its Arcadian yet mechanised beauty and its creator.
In this essay, I argue that Psalm 23 serves as a thematic rubric through which to understand how Prospero’s machinations affect the progress of the redemption of King Alonso throughout the play. At ...the same time, however, recognizing Prospero’s moral complexities and deficiencies, I also argue that Prospero’s mercy toward and reconciliation with Alonso ultimately demonstrates the sovereign influence of a Providence beyond Prospero’s control—a Providence that works through charity and grace beyond Prospero’s initial intentions. This higher providential power, therefore, ought rightly to be seen as the ultimate shepherd of the play—one who works to affect not only Alonso’s but also Prospero’s spiritual restoration.
This essay shows how a political-theological reading of Twelfth Night yields a literary criticism alert to the injurious biases of inveterate prejudice and unequal power while seeking within the ...uneven status landscapes of Shakespearean drama and Biblical narrative signs of cosmopolitan hospitality and elastic virtue practices of attention and care.
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