Search results for ""Author Lena Cowen Orlin""

Between 1500 and 1700, London grew from a minor national capital to the largest city in Europe. The defining period of growth was the period from 1550 to 1650, the midpoint of which coincided with the end of Elizabeth I's reign and the height of Shakespeare's theatrical career. In Material London, ca. 1600, Lena Cowen Orlin and a distinguished group of social, intellectual, urban, architectural, and agrarian historians, archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and literary critics explore the ideas, structures, and practices that distinguished London before the Great Fire, basing their investigations on the material traces in artifacts, playtexts, documents, graphic arts, and archaeological remains. In order to evoke "material London, ca. 1600," each scholar examines a different aspect of one of the great world cities at a critical moment in Western history. Several chapters give broad panoramic and authoritative views: what architectural forms characterized the built city around 1600; how the public theatre established its claim on the city; how London's citizens incorporated the new commercialism of their culture into their moral views. Other essays offer sharply focused studies: how Irish mantles were adopted as elite fashions in the hybrid culture of the court; how the city authorities clashed with the church hierarchy over the building of a small bookshop; how London figured in Ben Jonson's exploration of the role of the poet. Although all the authors situate the material world of early modern London—its objects, products, literatures, built environment, and economic practices—in its broader political and cultural contexts, provocative debates and exchanges remain both within and between the essays as to what constitutes "material London, ca. 1600."

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The Private Life of William Shakespeare tells the story of Shakespeare as a family man in Stratford-upon-Avon. Cowen Orlin offers close readings of key archival documents associated with Shakespeare and develops a contextual understanding of the genres from which these documents emerge, reconsidering clusters of evidence that have been held to prove some persistent biographical fables. Cowen Orlin argues, too, that the histories of some of Shakespeare''s neighbours illuminate aspects of his own life.This new biography explores Shakespeare''s private life in Stratford-upon-Avon, from his personal aspirations and self-determination, to his relations with his family members and neighbours. We learn that his early wedding freed him from craft training to pursue a literary career, and that his wife''s work enabled him to make the first of the property purchases that grounded his life as a gentleman.Throughout, we encounter a Shakespeare who consciously and purposefully designed his life ^^

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A new biography of William Shakespeare that explores his private life in Stratford-upon-Avon, his personal aspirations, his self-determination, and his relations with the members of his family and his neighbours. The Private Life of William Shakespeare tells the story of Shakespeare in Stratford as a family man. The book offers close readings of key documents associated with Shakespeare and develops a contextual understanding of the genres from which these documents emerge. It reconsiders clusters of evidence that have been held to prove some persistent biographical fables. It also shows how the histories of some of Shakespeare's neighbours illuminate aspects of his own life. Throughout, we encounter a Shakespeare who consciously and with purpose designed his life. Having witnessed the business failures of his merchant father, he determined not to follow his father's model. His early wedding freed him from craft training to pursue a literary career. His wife's work, and probably the assistance of his parents and brothers, enabled him to make the first of the property purchases that grounded his life as a gentleman. With his will, he provided for both his daughters in ways that were suitable to their circumstances; Anne Shakespeare was already protected by dower rights in the houses and lands he had acquired. His funerary monument suggests that the man of 'small Latin and less Greek' in fact had some experience of an Oxford education. Evidences are that he commissioned the monument himself.

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The twelve essays in this volume explore the relationships between Shakespearean pedagogy, performance, and scholarship. The volume consists of four sections: 'Acts of Recovery,' which includes essays that take an historicist approach to performance concerns; 'Performing the Moment,' in which the authors describe their experiences staging a particular Shakespearean scene in an actual production; 'Recordings,' or analyses of Shakespearean productions that were preserved on film or audiotape; and 'Extensions and Explorations,' discussions of adaptations and variations of Shakespeare's plays on stage. Throughout the volume the authors examine the ways in which performance criticism and performance studies illuminate our approaches to those texts. Contributors include Leslie Thomson, Daniel Colvin, Ellen Summers, Eric Binnie, Cary Mazer, Edward Isser, Edward Rocklin, Michael Friedman, Caroline McManus, Lisa McDonnell, Sheila Cavanagh, and Lois Potter.

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