Corpses revealed: The staging of the theatrical corpse in early modern drama
type: CreativeWork
description: My dissertation examines the theatrical depiction of corpses as both stage-objects for theoretical speculation and as performance phenomena of the early modern English stage. Investigating popular drama on the London stage from 1587 -- 1683, I demonstrate that the performance of the dead body by the living actor (what I term the "theatrical corpse") is informed by early modern secular and religious polemics over the materiality of the body, the efficacy of performative behavior, and emerging theories of theatrical presence. Previously, literary scholars have approached the performance of death on the stage using the insights of psychoanalysis or medical science, arguing for a rise of the subject and a growing sense of the individual via the emergence of empirical science and anatomical dissection. By contrast, my dissertation focuses on the material realities of the performance event such as staging, sets, and performance objects. In so doing, my dissertation reveals the theatrical corpse on stage---much like the early modern corpse off stage---to function as an active narrative agent beyond its death.
abstract: My dissertation examines the theatrical depiction of corpses as both stage-objects for theoretical speculation and as performance phenomena of the early modern English stage. Investigating popular drama on the London stage from 1587 -- 1683, I demonstrate that the performance of the dead body by the living actor (what I term the "theatrical corpse") is informed by early modern secular and religious polemics over the materiality of the body, the efficacy of performative behavior, and emerging theories of theatrical presence. Previously, literary scholars have approached the performance of death on the stage using the insights of psychoanalysis or medical science, arguing for a rise of the subject and a growing sense of the individual via the emergence of empirical science and anatomical dissection. By contrast, my dissertation focuses on the material realities of the performance event such as staging, sets, and performance objects. In so doing, my dissertation reveals the theatrical corpse on stage---much like the early modern corpse off stage---to function as an active narrative agent beyond its death.
author: Imbracsio, N M
keywords: Literature, English, Theater History
date published: 2010-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:22:31Z
provider: University of New Hampshire
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of New Hampshire