The Wooden Matter of Human Bodies: Prosthesis and Stump in A Larum for London

Nardizzi, Vin

doi:10.1057/9781137015693_8

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Encountering a keyword like 'lame' in the example with which this essay opened, perhaps the actor assumes a limp or a prosthesis such as 'Kentes woden leage', the stage property Philip Henslowe lists in his records. 21 My implicit assumption in turning to the keywords with which I began is that by reading disability at the level of the character our critical practice of marking disability follows these invitations to the actor's work. When we think about disability, we think about the bodies described by such terms.…”

Section: Characterizing Disabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstrable Disability

Williams

2019

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This essay is about how disability rhetoric functions in early modern plays beyond the visible difference of disabled characters. In a medium that makes meaning out of bodies, disability rhetoric registers how much the language of disqualification can only succeed without the human form of the actor. Disability epithets define other bodies on the stage as whole and unmarked by negation, or, by contrast, have the effect of unsettling the scrutiny of the bodies that are onstage. Attention to disability rhetoric thus offers an instructive study because it succinctly outlines the concepts that ossify into, and serve to naturalize, negative images of early modern disability.This essay considers how disability rhetoric functions in early modern plays beyond the visible difference of disabled characters. First: an illustrative experiment. If you turn to an online database of early modern drama -say, for example, a research tool such as the Open Source Shakespeare concordance -and enter a keyword associated with bodily difference, one of many terms we might consider an early modern analogue for our contemporary vocabulary of disability, the results are surprising. A search of 'lame' returns eighteen instances across Shakespeare's corpus, and only rarely do these phrases discursively construct a character's body in the present. 1 In As You Like It, for example, 'lame' is a future that Adam imagines for his 'old limbs' (2.3.685); 'lame' is Rosalind's critique of poetic feet in verses that 'could not bear themselves' (3.2.1279); and 'lame' is Celia's verb of choice for the effect of an onslaught of words (1.3.412). The term evokes bodily limitation, but it works abstractly rather than describing a character's body or becoming a cue to an actor's practice. Similar patterns emerge in examples from other plays by Shakespeare. When Aufidius realizes he would 'lame the foot / Of our design' and Desdemona laments 'O most lame and impotent conclusion' (Othello 2.1.949), the metaphor takes for granted a powerful analogy between bodies that can function and other objects that receive praise Katherine Schaap Williams (ks.williams@utoronto.ca) is an assistant professor in the department of English at the University of Toronto. Katherine Schaap WilliamsEarly Theatre 22.2

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Section: Characterizing Disabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstrable Disability

Williams

2019

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“…19 So too, while The Rape of Lucrece (1607) and Alarum for London (1599) have recently received a welcome increase in critical attention, this work tends to be more focussed on the 'shocking lack of care' shown to its heroine in the former, and the discourses and materiality of disability in the latter, than on the relationship and consequences of combining rape and massacre, whether rhetorically or physically. 20 To flesh out this relationship, this essay contends that prominent traditions of reading rape -as an attack on the soul, and as an attack on a city or stateilluminate the implications of rhetorical and physical acts of rape and massacre in Alarum for London. I argue that when enacted concomitantly, rape and massacre have the propensity to destroy both body and soul, individual and the wider society to which they belong.…”

Section: Georgina Lucasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rape, Massacre, The Lucrece Tradition, and <i>Alarum for London</i>

Lucas

2017

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This article explores the conflation of rhetorical and physical acts of rape and massacre in a range of early modern drama, culminating in a case study of the two phenomena in Alarum for London (1599). Rooting its analysis in the Lucrece myth, the essay demonstrates how prominent traditions of reading rape – as an attack on the soul, and as an attack on a city – provide a rubric through which Alarum can be understood. When enacted concomitantly, rape and massacre have the propensity to destroy body and soul, individual, and the wider society to which they belong.

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“…52 As Vin Nardizzi has speculated, Ralph's lameness might thus be represented with his leg absent and the actor balancing with a crutch, with a wooden peg leg, or with an "injured" prosthetic leg. 53,54 The fact that Dekker left the exact nature of Ralph's injury unstated was perhaps a deliberate move designed to allow theatrical companies to stage Shoemaker's according to the props and actors they had available.…”

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confidence: 99%

Missing Parts inThe Shoemaker’s Holiday

Skuse

2017

Renaissance Drama

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The Wooden Matter of Human Bodies: Prosthesis and Stump in A Larum for London

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

Demonstrable Disability

Demonstrable Disability

Rape, Massacre, The Lucrece Tradition, and <i>Alarum for London</i>

Missing Parts inThe Shoemaker’s Holiday

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