عنوان

Scorning the Image of Virtue

Number

LA125417

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Scorning the Image of Virtue

General Material Designation

[Article]

First Statement of Responsibility

Patricia J. McKee

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Leiden

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Brill

Text of Note

There survives an extraordinary letter of 1616 by the prominent English stage player, Nathan Field. His missive is one of the only extant apologies for the theater written by a player. Field's letter is a response to a sermon preached by Thomas Sutton, and it richly characterizes Field's relationship to his parish and to the larger ecclesial powers. This discussion shows how Field ironically employs the very charges often levied by opponents of theater-deception, emotional indulgence, and idolatry-to indict Sutton for a public attack he wielded against Field from the Sunday pulpit. Field's apology is read within the context of the era's antitheatricalist polemics, Jacobean politics, Reformation theology, and Field's history as the son of a radical puritan preacher. The letter invites deep consideration of church and theater-preaching and playing-as competing kinds of performance. Field's apology also focuses attention on a neglected area in theater studies-the history of players and playing in early modernity. What was an actor's idea of himself at a time when his profession was redefined by religious reforms? Further, this discussion offers preliminary suggestions for an early modern aesthetics of performance by inviting a dialogue between the era's extreme antitheatricalism and concurrent prescriptions for effective oratory. There survives an extraordinary letter of 1616 by the prominent English stage player, Nathan Field. His missive is one of the only extant apologies for the theater written by a player. Field's letter is a response to a sermon preached by Thomas Sutton, and it richly characterizes Field's relationship to his parish and to the larger ecclesial powers. This discussion shows how Field ironically employs the very charges often levied by opponents of theater-deception, emotional indulgence, and idolatry-to indict Sutton for a public attack he wielded against Field from the Sunday pulpit. Field's apology is read within the context of the era's antitheatricalist polemics, Jacobean politics, Reformation theology, and Field's history as the son of a radical puritan preacher. The letter invites deep consideration of church and theater-preaching and playing-as competing kinds of performance. Field's apology also focuses attention on a neglected area in theater studies-the history of players and playing in early modernity. What was an actor's idea of himself at a time when his profession was redefined by religious reforms? Further, this discussion offers preliminary suggestions for an early modern aesthetics of performance by inviting a dialogue between the era's extreme antitheatricalism and concurrent prescriptions for effective oratory.

Date of Publication

2016

Physical description

267-289

Title

Religion and the Arts

Volume Number

20/3

International Standard Serial Number

1568-5292

Subject Term

antitheatricalism

Subject Term

church history

Subject Term

early modern sermon

Subject Term

Elizabethan actors

Subject Term

English Renaissance theater

Subject Term

Nathan Field

Subject Term

Reformation iconoclasm

Patricia J. McKee

Call Number

10.1163/15685292-02003001

Electronic name

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y