Performances of Mourning in Shakespearean Theatre And Early Modern Culture

This bold and wide-ranging study takes a fresh look at a controversial question: what do the acts and shows of grief performed in early modern drama tell us about the religious culture of the world in which they were historically staged? Many rites of mourning shown in the theatre held Catholic resonances, but how did such memories of traditional worship work in post-Reformation England? Drawing on performance studies, this book provides detailed readings of major playtexts, Shakespearean and others, to explore the politics, pathologies, physiologies and parodies of mourning.

TOBIAS DÖRING is Professor of English Literature at the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, and review editor for the yearbook of the German Shakespeare Association. His previous books include Caribbean-English Passages (2002) and Performances of the Sacred in Late Medieval and Early Modern England (2005).