Anatomy of an Actress: Bel-imperia as Tragic Diva
Bel-imperia is a star player in The Spanish Tragedy, using bravura theatricality as she drives the plot forward and seeks revenge for the deaths of two lovers. With this novel role Kyd invokes the virtuosic performances of professional actresses, who first emerged in the commedia dell’arte in Italy in the 1560s. Their scenes of pathos and passion extended the arte’s reach beyond comedy to tragicomedies and tragedies. Playwrights and actors began to create new female-centered plays to showcase the actress’s presence and skills. This trend eventually affected the all-male stage, nowhere more clearly than in The Spanish Tragedy. Kyd refers explicitly to the Italian troupes, which gained international fame and royal patrons performing both improvised plays based on scenarios and fully scripted and memorized five-act plays. He built an innamorata in the Italian mode, translating her to the English stage with spectacular scenes mingling witty eroticism and tragic violence. Kyd stresses her virtuosity and multi-generic range while spinning a web of allusions to far-flung spheres featuring royal women and courtly politics, mixed-gender players and playing, and dramatic innovations in Italy, France, and Spain. The Spanish Tragedy shows that English playwrights used models forged abroad to fashion Italian-style leading “women” just as the commercial stages were striving to expand the repertory, attract paying audiences, and satisfy courtly tastes. Bel-imperia, played by a boy, is Kyd’s bold attempt to answer Hieronymo’s question: “For what’s a play without a woman in it?”
Necropolitical Resistance in Early Modern Drama: Violence and Death as Agentive Acts in Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy
...................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................1 Conversations Within Biopolitical Theory ..............................................................4 Biopolitics in the Early Modern Era ........................................................................8 Foucauldian Scholarship in Early Modern Drama.................................................11 Conclusion .............................................................................................................14 CHAPTER TWO: NECROPOLITICS AND GENDER ...................................................16 CHAPTER THREE: NECROPOLITICS AND CLASS ...................................................29 CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION ..................................................................................41 Bel-Imperia and Beatrice-Joanna: Women as Commodities .................................42 Death and Politics in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra ..................................51 Conclusion .............................................................................................................54 REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................56
Music of the Sirens
1. Sirens in Antiquity and the Middle Ages Leofranc Holford-Strevens 2. "Teach Me to Heare Mermaides Singinge": Embodiments of (Acoustic) Pleasure and Danger in the Modern West Linda Phyllis Austern 3. Devils, Daydreams and Desire: Siren Traditions and Musical Creation in the Central-Southern Andes Henry Stobart 4. "Sweet aluring harmony": Heavenly and Earthly Sirens in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Literary and Visual Culture Elena Calogero 5. The Sirens, the Epicurean Boat, and the Poetry of Praise Stephen Buhler 6. "Longindyingcall": of Music, Modernity, and the Sirens Lawrence Kramer 7. Russian Rusalkas and Nationalism: Water, Power, and Women Inna Naroditskaya 8. Rheinsirenen: Loreley and Other Rhine Maidens Annegret Fauser 9. The Mermaid of the Meyhane: The Legend of a Greek Singer in a Turkish Tavern John O'Connell 10. Siren Serenades: Music for Mami Wata/Mami Wata and Other Water Spirits in Africa Henry Drewal (with Charles Gore and Michelle Kisliuk) 11. The Navel, the Corporate, the Contradictory: Pop Sirens at the Twenty-first Century Thomasin LaMay and Robin Armstrong 12. The Cocktail Siren in David Lynch's Blue Velvet Jeongwon Joe Bibliography