Playing Dead: Staging Corpses, Ghosts, and Statues in Early Modern Drama

<p>Semi-animate corpses, physically powerful ghosts, and natural looking statues serve a powerful metatheatrical purpose in early modern drama. Such liminal bodies, which I define as figures caught between the fictional body and the living actor, model the relation between playgoer, actor, and playwright as they work together to produce theatrical fictions. The dramatized impact of liminal bodies on their onstage spectators draws playgoers' attention to their own experience of the liminally present theatrical world. Such displays of the power and pleasure of artifice paradoxically free theater from the constraining obligation of so-called accurate representation and highlight the pleasure playgoers and actors can find in participating together in imaginative yet embodied theatrical fictions. Ultimately, exploring why and how early modern liminal bodies worked onstage deepens our understanding of how theatrical embodiment shapes playgoer experience. </p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Outterson-Murphy, Sarah

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Tanya Pollard

• audience response; corpses; ghosts; liminal bodies; Shakespeare; statues

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1082

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:gc_etds-2096