Project Details
Abstract
Shoreditch, the Liberties and Eastcheap:
Licentiousness and History on Shakespeare’s Peripheral Stage
This book-writing project was designed as a two-year project. The first year (from August
2009 to July 2010) was approved and I am currently working on it. This application is for the
second part of the project (from August 2010 to July 2011).
I intend to write a book on the licentious spirits in Shakespeare’s history plays by
exploring their interconnection with licentious features in the Renaissance Liberties and also
by analyzing the thrill engendered by the Bard’s risk of tempering with history and with
dominant social and political discourses. My book will borrow perspectives from New
Historicism and social theories on city space. Eastcheap, where Hal plays with Falstaff, is a
place that epitomizes licentious spirits. The discussion will stress on the significance of
Eastcheap and it will also examine other significant unruly characters such as rebellious
commoners and defying women to demonstrate that such licentious characters within
Shakespeare’s history plays reflect the licentious spirits of the peripheral stages.
The project can be considered an extension of my NSC research project (2004-2005)
entitled Fools, Tricksters and Drama: The Representation of the Comic in Shakespeare's
History Plays, which enabled me to publish a paper, “Comic Spaces in Shakespeare’s History
Plays,” in NTU Studies in Language and Literature (Dec. 2007). While doing the
abovementioned project, I had lots of interesting ideas which have not been included into the
published paper because of the limitation on the length of an acceptable journal article, so I
intend to turn them into useful elements for my book. I also plan to make use of some of the
analyses in my unpublished Ph. D. dissertation entitled Interfering Voices: Women and
History in Shakespeare’s History Plays, which was completed in June 2000.
The present project was inspired by Museum of London’s thrilling announcement of the
discovery of Shakespeare’s first playhouse in Shoreditch on August 6, 2008. Jack Lohman,
director of Museum of London Archeology, said that the discovery offers “a tantalising
glimpse into Shakespeare’s city.” Times on Line London Correspondent, Fiona Hamilton,
wrote about this Shoreditch find: “Located outside the jurisdiction of the City of London,
where puritanical magistrates and City leaders frowned on the debauchery of the theatre
movement, Shakespeare and other playwrights were free to express themselves.” This
speculation upon the site seemingly coheres with features of the Liberties depicted both by
Steven Mullaney in The Place of the Stage: Licence, Play and Power in Renaissance England
and Stephen Greenblatt in Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, yet it
overlooks the risks involved in theatrical activities. By linking the location of the peripheral
stage to Shakespeare’s risky dramatizing of English historiography, a subject presumably
under stringent censorship, my proposed book hopes to draw attention to the fascinating
licentious spirits inherent in the Bard’s history plays.
After more than four months of research for this year’s project, I have a rather good
mastery over materials on contemporary theories on city space and materials on the city
culture of London during Renaissance England. This will serve as my theoretical framework
for my book. I believe that the prospect of my book-writing project is a promising one.
Project IDs
Project ID:PE9912-0068
External Project ID:NSC99-2410-H182-041
External Project ID:NSC99-2410-H182-041
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 01/08/10 → 31/07/11 |
Keywords
- Shakespeare
- the Liberties
- Shoreditch
- Eastcheap
- history plays
- licentiousness
Fingerprint
Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.