A New Contribution to Early Modern Memory Studies

Shaping Remembrance from Shakespeare to Milton by Patricia Phillippy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 269 pp. Hardcover $110.00

“Yet not past sense”: Walter Ralegh, Mary Wroth and the pleasure principles of the body

This discussion considers both the poetic and prose writings of Walter Ralegh and Mary Wroth with specific reference to the figuration of the body and the deployment of the senses in their narratives. Initially, late sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century views are reviewed concerning the senses and the extent to which these are developments of ideas inherited from antiquity. Subsequently, attention is paid to the evocations of sensory perceptions in Ralegh’s and Wroth’s writing with reference to accounts of rapture, seduction, illness and near-death experiences, querying whether the interrogation of early modern epistemological and senseate expectations are inevitably linked to specificities of gendered experience and writing. Indeed, in the findings ranged during the course of this discussion, it becomes increasingly apparent that even in writings with marked gendered perspectives, the relation of human experience regarding the senses and knowledge acquisition may return to strikingly analogous enquiries. The final phase of discussion reflects upon how Ralegh’s and Wroth’s accounts of the senses contribute to an ongoing early modern debate on the human condition

Shakespeare and the fortunes of war and memory

Cet article souligne l’importance de la mémoire dans les pièces historiques de Shakespeare, qui datent des années 1590, et leur participation aux débats contemporains sur la militarisation de la société au cours du règne d’Élisabeth Ière. Dans plusieurs de ces pièces historiques, les belligérants issus de l’aristocratie essaient de transformer le passé et l’avenir de la nation. Dans ce contexte, la mémoire devient inévitablement une ressource stratégique permettant d’aboutir à un changement politique. S’appuyant sur les deux tétralogies historiques de Shakespeare, cet article entend démontrer comment la mémoire peut engendrer la violence, ou la contrer, dans des sociétés politiquement fragiles.This article focuses upon the importance of memory in Shakespeare’s history plays of the 1590s and the ways in which these plays may link with contemporary debates concerning militarised society in the reign of Elizabeth I. Many of these history plays present the attempts of warring aristocrats to reshape the past of the nation and to lay claim to its future. Inevitably, in this context, memory becomes a key resource with which to consolidate a commitment to political change. Drawing upon examples from the two tetralogies of history plays, this discussion explores how violence may be engendered or resisted in fragile political societies with the resources of memory

”You are welcome to your country” : initiation and re-encounter in the dramatic world of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi

This article considers the structural, thematic and dramaturgical dimensions of the first scene of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. Particular attention is paid to the formulation of a framing device, key concepts which underpin the intrigue being played out onstage and the construction and resolution of the dramatic narrative of the first scene. Readers are also invited to consider the earlier classical and medieval dramatic traditions which shaped Webster’s writing of this scene.Cet article examine les dimensions structurelles, thématiques et dramaturgiques de la scène d’exposition de La Duchesse d’Amalfi de John Webster. Une analyse approfondie est consacrée à la formulation d’un dispositif théâtral de cadrage, aux concepts clés qui sous-tendent l’intrigue et à la construction et à la résolution du récit dramatique de cette première scène. Le lecteur est également invité à considérer les anciennes traditions dramatiques, à savoir classique et médiévale, qui en ont influencé la composition par Webster