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Libels and Theater in Shakespeare's England

Libels and Theater in Shakespeare's England Publics, Politics, Performance

Hardback (19 Oct 2023)

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Publisher's Synopsis

In the first comprehensive history of libels in Elizabethan England, Joseph Mansky traces the crime across law, literature, and culture, outlining a viral and often virulent media ecosystem. During the 1590s, a series of crises - simmering xenophobia, years of dearth and hunger, surges of religious persecution - sparked an extraordinary explosion of libeling. The same years also saw the first appearances of libels on London stages. Defamatory, seditious texts were launched into the sky, cast in windows, recited in court, read from pulpits, and seized by informers. Avatars of sedition, libels nonetheless empowered ordinary people to pass judgment on the most controversial issues and persons of the day. They were marked by mobility, swirling across the early modern media and across class, confessional, and geographical lines. Ranging from Shakespearean drama to provincial pageantry, this book charts a public sphere poised between debate and defamation, between free speech and fake news.

About the Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press dates from 1534 and is part of the University of Cambridge. We further the University's mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

Book information

ISBN: 9781009362764
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Pub date:
DEWEY: 822.309353
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Number of pages: 300
Weight: 542g
Height: 159mm
Width: 237mm
Spine width: 21mm