Representing France and the French in early modern English drama
By: edited by Jean-Christophe Mayer ; with a preface by Ton Hoenselaars.
Contributors: Mayer, Jean-Christophe.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Newark; Cranbury, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 247
ISBN-13: 9780874130003
Subjects: Shakespeare, William, -- 1564-1616 -- Knowledge -- France; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism; English drama -- 17th century -- History and criticism; National characteristics, French, in literature; Public opinion -- Great Britain -- History; France -- In literature; France -- Foreign public opinion, British -- History; Great Britain -- Relations -- France; France -- Relations -- Great Britain
Description: This wide-ranging collection of essays, written by leading specialists, furnishes previously unpublished evidence of France's role and importance in the early modern English literary and dramatic fields. Its chapter-length introduction offers an up-to-date critical presentation of the issues involved: representation, cultural identity, the construction of otherness, Frenchness, and the social and cultural dynamics of theater. The essays in the five sections of the book continue the debate with a series of in-depth studies touching on important critical themes such as intertextuality; old and new historicisms; language, semiotics, and nationhood; imagined geographies; and stereotypes and social satire. The book will appeal to students and specialists of Renaissance literature, to scholars working on the construction of national identity and will be required reading for anyone interested in cultural exchange or comparative literature. Jean-Christophe Mayer is a senior research fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-233) and index.
Table of contents: title: Shakespeare, Burgundy, and the design in the arras / Dominique Goy-Blanquet; title: Mary Sidney's French Sophocles : the Countess of Pembroke reads Robert Garnier / Anne Lake Prescott; title: "Worthies away" : the scene begins to cloud in Shakespeare's Navarre / Richard Wilson; title: George Chapman's French tragedies, or, Machiavelli beyond the mirror / Gilles Bertheau; title: The ironies of Babel in Shakespeare's Henry V / Jean-Christophe Mayer; title: "O confusion of languages, and yet no tower of Babel!" : French allusions and Ben Jonson's linguistic project / Florence March; title: Roussillon and retrospection in All's well that ends well / Deanne Williams; title: Strangers alter et idem : French allusions and the staging of distant lands in early modern drama / Ladan Niayesh; title: The "French disease" in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama / Frederique Fouassier; title: "False Frenchmen" in Richard Brome's plays / Athina Efstathiou-Lavabre.