This volume posits that clothing in the early modern period was conceived of as the prime interface between the human body and its multiple environments. Both a second skin and a human-made artefact, dress can indeed be considered as the most immediate site for the elaboration of any sort of ecology, in its etymological sense of a 'discourse' of the oikos, or of the place we inhabit. This collection shows how early modern English literature, and drama in particular, interrogates the crucial relationship between humans and the world that surrounds them in its staging of dress. It also argues that the theatrical productions of the time derived much of their creative energy from this process, by which climates and their effects were translated and embodied through dress on the mediating stage. Its various chapters study early modern clothes in their ecosystems and challenge the inside/outside, natural/artificial and body/environment binaries.
| ISBN: | 9781399522144 |
| Publication date: | 30th November 2024 |
| Author: | Sophie Chiari, AnneMarie MillerBlaise |
| Publisher: | Edinburgh University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 272 pages |
| Series: | Edinburgh Critical Studies in Renaissance Culture |
| Genres: |
Literary theory Material culture Literary studies: c 1400 to c 1600 Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800 Literary studies: plays and playwrights Fashion and textile design Classic and pre-20th century plays |