"This study has essentially two focuses, two stories to tell. One story traces the secularization, theatricalization, and uncanny returns of suppressed religious culture in early modern drama. The other story concerns the tendency of the theater to expose contingencies and gaps in politico-judicial practices of spectacular violence." "The investigation covers a broad range of plays dating from the fifteenth century to the closing of the theatres in 1642; however, three chapters are devoted to extensive analysis of single plays: R.B.'s Apius and Virginia, Shakespeare's 2 Henry VI, and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus."--Jacket.

This study considers a broad range of plays dating from the fifteenth century to the closing of the theaters in 1642; however, seperate chapters are devoted to extensive analysis ofApius and Virginia,2 Henry VI, andDoctor Faustus.

Dismemberment in Drama / Dismemberment of Drama is an essay collection which considers the dramatic possibility contained in the images and narratives of dismemberment frequently recurring on the western stage. The Classical Tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, the Romanticism of Kleist, the surrealism of Artaud, and the contemporary drama of Suzan-Lori Parks and Marina Carr are just some of the fractured and fragmented bodies analyzed in this collection. Both individually and in concert the contributors ask what a dismembered body means. Such an inquiry allows them to confront dismemberment as a theoretical category which understands such twentieth-century innovations as the Theatre of Cruelty, the Epic Theatre, the Open Theater, and documentary theatre as part of a long dramatic tradition. Dismemberment in drama examines the tenuous bond between representation and the object being represented by highlighting the dismemberment of drama as a form that occurs during drama’s repeated theorizations of its own enactment. There is a conflict between disintegration and unity inherent in mimesis, theatrical phenomenology, and performance.

The medieval and early modern English imaginary encompasses a broad range of negative and positive dismemberments, from the castration anxieties of Turk plays to the elite practices of distributive burial. This study argues that representations and instances of bodily fragmentation illustrated and performed acts of exclusion and inclusion, detaching not only limbs from bodies but individuals from identity groups. Within this context it examines questions of legitimate and illegitimate violence, showing that such distinctions largely rested upon particular acts’ assumed symbolic meanings. Specific chapters address ways dismemberments manifested gender, human versus animal nature, religious and ethnic identity, and social rank. The book concludes by examining the afterlives of body parts, including relics and specimens exhibited for entertainment and education, contextualized by discussion of the resurrection body and its promise of bodily reintegration. Grounded in dramatic works, the study also incorporates a variety of genres from midwifery manuals to broadside ballads.

Offering the first sustained and comprehensive scholarly consideration of the dramatic potential of the blazon, this volume complicates what has become a standard reading of the Petrarchan convention of dismembering the beloved through poetic description. At the same time, it contributes to a growing understanding of the relationship between the material conditions of theater and interpretations of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The chapters in this collection are organized into five thematic parts emphasizing the conventions of theater that compel us to consider bodies as both literally present and figuratively represented through languge. The first part addresses the dramatic blazon as used within the conventions of courtly love. Examining the classical roots of the Petrarchan blazon, the next part explores the violent eroticism of a poetic technique rooted in Ovidian notions of metamorphosis. With similar attention paid to brutality, the third part analyzes the representation of blazonic dismemberment on stage and screen. Figurative battles become real in the fourth part, which addresses the frequent blazons surfacing in historical and political plays. The final part moves to the role of audience, analyzing the role of the observer in containing the identity of the blazoned woman as well as her attempts to resist becoming an objectified spectacle.

Criminal Dismemberment is the first book to examine dismemberment as a phenomenon in the context of criminal acts. While the number of such dismemberment cases in any given country is often small, the notion of dismemberment captures the imagination, often leading many to question the motivations as to why anyone would perpetrate such an unnatural act. The act of dismemberment, in its original form, referred to cutting, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise separating the limbs from a living being as a form a capital punishment. In today’s society, it has become associated most frequently with the criminal act of sectioning the remains of the dead in an attempt to conceal the death and dispose of the remains or make the process of identification of the deceased more difficult to achieve. Drawing on expertise from leading forensic anthropologists, pathologists, and forensic materials engineers, the book brings together much of the literature on criminal dismemberment—viewing it from the investigative, forensic, and social science perspectives. Key features include: Psychological analysis of the perpetrator Detailed examination of case studies, anonymized from recent investigations Difficulties encountered in a dismemberment investigation Tool mark analysis, including knives and saws, accompanied by over 120 detailed, full-color illustrations and photographs Serves as a unique and useful resource in the investigation of dismembered human remains The diverse backgrounds of the contributors offers a thorough account of such topics as the history of dismemberment, the forensic pathology in such cases, the importance of developing a common vocabulary in terminology used, the legal admissibility in dismemberment cases. As such, Criminal Dismemberment will serve as a comprehensive reference for students and practitioners alike.