Overview

Full Product Details

9781009226318

Table of Contents

Reviews

'We all know that many had an anti-theatrical prejudice in Renaissance England. Kilian Schindler's learned and persuasive new book argues that we have been thinking about the issue in the wrong way. Hostility to the theatre was centred on drama's shape-shifting nature, the ways in which plays represented people in disguise and, by implication, able to evade the authorities. Accordingly, anxiety about the theatre was centred on questions of what could be tolerated, what had to be revealed and how honest ordinary citizens should be in times of religious persecution. Was outward conformity enough? Or should there be a window into the hearts of men and women? As enjoyable to read as it is challenging, Religious Dissimulation and Early Modern Drama is a thought-provoking work that has much to teach us about Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe and other early modern dramatists, and the conditions under which English commercial theatre was established.' Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex 'Dissembling, hypocrisy, equivocation: these are some of the fears that arose from the Reformation. The local politics surrounding issues of religious conformity produced a general anxiety that outward appearances could not be trusted. People might not be what they seem or say what they believed. Despite the cultural centrality of religious dissimulation, there has not been a sustained study of this topic until now. Kilian Schindler's book deftly takes us into the nuances and complexities of attitudes towards dissimulation. With learned depth, stylistic clarity, and fresh readings of familiar plays, Schindler masterfully explores the intersection of dissimulation and theatrical performance in early modern England.' Kristen Poole, University of Delaware

'We all know that many had an anti-theatrical prejudice in Renaissance England. Kilian Schindler's learned and persuasive new book argues that we have been thinking about the issue in the wrong way. Hostility to the theatre was centred on drama's shape-shifting nature, the ways in which plays represented people in disguise and, by implication, able to evade the authorities. Accordingly, anxiety about the theatre was centred on questions of what could be tolerated, what had to be revealed and how honest ordinary citizens should be in times of religious persecution. Was outward conformity enough? Or should there be a window into the hearts of men and women? As enjoyable to read as it is challenging, Religious Dissimulation and Early Modern Drama is a thought-provoking work that has much to teach us about Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe and other early modern dramatists, and the conditions under which English commercial theatre was established.' Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex 'Dissembling, hypocrisy, equivocation: these are some of the fears that arose from the Reformation. The local politics surrounding issues of religious conformity produced a general anxiety that outward appearances could not be trusted. People might not be what they seem or say what they believed. Despite the cultural centrality of religious dissimulation, there has not been a sustained study of this topic until now. Kilian Schindler's book deftly takes us into the nuances and complexities of attitudes towards dissimulation. With learned depth, stylistic clarity, and fresh readings of familiar plays, Schindler masterfully explores the intersection of dissimulation and theatrical performance in early modern England.' Kristen Poole, University of Delaware

Author Information

Kilian Schindler teaches early modern English Literature at the University of Fribourg. His dissertation on religious dissimulation in early modern drama (2019) was awarded the Martin Lehnert prize of the German Shakespeare Foundation. He is co-editor of a critical edition of Sebastian Castellio's De haereticis an sint persequendi (forthcoming).

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available