Stages of Madness
Sin, Sickness and Seneca in Shakespearean Drama
Summary
(Dr Rory Loughnane, Reader in Early Modern Studies, University of Kent)
«Power propels the reader through an enlightened tour of madness. From the Bedlam-laden performance of Edgar in King Lear, through the schism-inflected demonic possession of The Comedy of Errors, to the furious revenges of Titus Andronicus, this book asks the biggest questions imaginable about the evolution of cultural understandings of how mind relates to self and how notions of sanity are constructed through the reflection of madness in religious and medical contexts.»
(Dr Timothy Ryan Day, Associate Professor of English, Saint Louis University – Madrid Campus)
In re-evaluating the contemporary staging of madness in the early modern period this book provides a clearer understanding and interpretation of characters who suffer from mental and emotional extremities in Shakespearean drama. It addresses three factors that contribute to early modern concepts of madness. These are theories of the «self» current and emergent in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries; contemporary medical writings on madness; and the legacy of portrayals of madness from classical Greek and Roman drama, with a particular focus on the Roman tragedian, Seneca. The more complete understanding that this combined approach provides, facilitates a better-informed reading of Shakespeare’s plays, plays that so often deal with mental and emotional extremities that were once thought of as «madness».
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Quotations from Early Modern Sources
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Self, Sin and Justice
- Chapter 2 Medicine, Doctors and Hospitals
- Chapter 3 Classical Madness
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Figures
All figures are taken from the second edition of Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (Basilea, 1555) copy in the Bibliotheca Histórica de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid Sig.: BH MED85
Figure 1. Octava musculorum tabula / Eighth table of muscles
Figure 2. Secundo musculorum tabula / Second table of muscles
Figure 3. Tertia musculorum tabula / Third layer of muscles
Figure 4. Humani corporis ossium ex latero delineatio / Bones of the human body drawn from the side
Acknowledgements
Work on this book began during my PhD years at Trinity College Dublin and the book that it has become remains (as my thinking as a scholar does) in many ways indebted to my thesis supervisor Amanda Piesse. I am also grateful to Mike Pincombe and John Scattergood, who were the examiners of the thesis that it once was, for the suggestions and advice that they gave at that stage. I have also greatly benefitted from the scholarly communities that I have encountered at the four other Universities at which I have been employed in the intervening years, and I am grateful for the friends and colleagues who I made at University College Dublin, University of Cyprus, Saint Louis University – Madrid Campus, and the University of Sharjah, UAE. I also beleaguered many a student at these institutions with my thoughts and with my questions to them about the plays and ideas discussed herein. My students at all of these places have helped me to refine my thinking on the book, and I am particularly thankful to the students of my “Body and Self” course in Cyprus, and of my “Madness” course in Madrid.
I also owe thanks to the organisers and participants of several conferences where I have aired some of the ideas for this book; “Staging Transgression” (Trinity College Dublin 2011), the SEDERI conference on “Faces, Facades and Frontispieces: Public and Private Selves” (Madrid 2011), the FMRSI conference on the “Senses: Sight and Visual Perception” (University College Dublin 2016) as well as conferences at Saint Louis University – Madrid Campus on “Desire, Death, and Dialogue” (2015) and on “Sense and the Senses: The Mind and the Body” (2016). The Early Modern Tavern Society deserve special thanks. They are a unique group of scholars who have collaborated and conspired with me and with each other on some wonderful and amazing projects since we first met in 2006. They are my intellectual touchstone (or, at least, bar) and my thanks especially are extended to Rory Loughnane, Edel Semple and Darragh Greene who have each read the guts of the book in its making.
At Peter Lang I have found an enormously patient team who have allowed me to take the time necessary to do the book right. I’m very grateful particularly to Christobel Scaif for liking the idea in the first place and standing by it when my life got in the way of finishing. Also to the anonymous readers who saw potential in a proposal that was not quite perfect and whose advice was instrumental in reshaping this from what it was. And, indeed, to Laura Beth Shanahan, Simon Phillimore, Emma Clarke, Philip Dunshea, Shruthi Maniyodath and everyone else at Peter Lang who have had a hand in bringing the work through the press.
To all of these people a debt of gratitude is due for improving my work and for saving me from errors, inaccuracies and inelegances. Mistakes that remain are mine alone. My final thanks are due to my family. My mother suffered through much of this in the early years of its formation. I can’t claim that she kept me sane, but she has been a rock of support especially when she could not. In more recent years, my wife and children have proved that it is infinitely better to be mad about someone than just to be mad.
A Note on Quotations from Early Modern Sources
Because early modern text can, at times, be difficult to read – especially in its inconsistency – I have silently modernised where I judged it safe to do so without altering meaning or glossing over controversy.
Introduction
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Details
- Pages
- XVI, 162
- Year
- 2023
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781803740768
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781803740775
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783034308298
- DOI
- 10.3726/b20457
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2023 (June)
- Keywords
- Seneca Melancholy Sin Psychology Drama Theatre Early Modern Shakespeare Madness Early Modern Drama Shakespeare's plays
- Published
- Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, New York, Wien, 2023. XVI, 162 pp., 4 fig. b/w.
