Description
Book SynopsisWitmore examines the ways in which children, with their proverbial capacity for spontaneous imitation and their imaginative absorption, came to exemplify the virtues and powers of fiction during the English Renaissance.
Trade ReviewThe complexity and significance of Witmore's Pretty Creatures belie its title.... This is a book to be read by any scholar of the early modern period, or indeed of any period, interested in the evolving concept of fiction, explored here in a range including civic spectacles, plays written for children’s companies, a Shakespeare play (The Winter’s Tale) and, as an innovative test case, children’s testimonies at witch trials.... It will encourage or require the continued rethinking of the presence of children as performers in much early modern literature.
* Modern Philology *
Witmore's analysis of the role of children as an agency of fiction breaks new ground, making this book an original, valuable contribution to understanding both the figure of the child during the Renaissance and the Renaissance debate over the nature of mimesis.
* Choice *
