What did publicity look like before the eighteenth century? What were its uses and effects, and around whom was it organized? The essays in this collection ask these questions of early modern London. Together, they argue that commercial theater was a vital engine in celebritys production. The men and women associated with playingnot just actors and authors, but playgoers, characters, and the extraordinary local figures adjunct to playhouse productionsintroduced new ways of thinking about the function and meaning of fame in the period; about the networks of communication through which it spread; and about theatrical publics. Drawing on the insights of Habermasean public sphere theory and on the interdisciplinary field of celebrity studies, Publicity and the Early Modern Stage introduces a new and comprehensive look at early modern theories and experiences of publicity.
1. Introduction Allison K. Deutermann (Baruch College, CUNY) and Musa
Gurnis (Washington University, St Louis).- Part One: People Made Public.- 2.
Local Characters Onstage and Off Musa Gurnis (Washington University in Saint
Louis).-
3. Bodies Public: The Roaring Girl and the Rise of Celebrity Matthew
Hunter (Texas Tech University).-
4. Celebrity No-Show: John Taylors The
Great Eater of Kent Karen Raber (University of Mississippi).-
5. Jonsons
Ridicule of Shakespeare in To the Reader of The Alchemist James P. Bednarz
(Long Island University).- Part Two: Imaginary People and the Social
Imaginary.-
6. Fictional Celebrities and the Repertory System Richard Preiss
(University of Utah).-
7. Robert Armin's Nest of Ninnies and the Public
Punchline Adhaar Noor Desai (Bard College).-
8. Extravagant and Wheeling
Characters Allison K. Deutermann (Baruch College, CUNY).- Part Three: Knowing
Audiences.-
9. Coriolanus in the Marketplace PiersBrown (Kenyon College).-
10. Methinks I see the brave Hieronimo!: Dramatic Convention and Audience
Experience in the London Commercial Theater Lauren Robertson (Columbia
University).-
11. Afterword Joe Roach (Yale University).
Allison Deutermann is Associate Professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York, USA. She is the author of Listening for Theatrical Form in Early Modern England (2016) and, with Andrįs Kiséry, co-editor of Formal Matters: Reading the Materials of English Renaissance Literature (2013).
Matt Hunter is Assistant Professor of English at Texas Tech University, USA, where he teaches courses on Shakespeare, early modern literature, and literary criticism. His writing has appeared in Representations, English Literary History, English Literary Renaissance, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.
Musa Gurnis is the author of Mixed Faith and Shared Feeling (2018), a co-publication of the University of Pennsylvania Press and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Her articles have appeared in the journals Shakespeare and Shakespeare Studies, as well as in theedited collection Religion and Drama in Early Modern England (2011).
