9th Annual McGill University Graduate Student Symposium on Language and
Literature
“Blood Lust, Blood Loss: Representations of Struggle and Desire”
March 22 & 23, 2003
Montreal, Quebec
Riots, Rebellions, and Revolts: Insurgent Theatrics and Theatrical
Insurgencies in Shakespeare’s England
Papers are solicited for a panel on the relationship between Shakespeare’s
plays and social unrest. Many critics have argued that Shakespeare’s portrayal
of riots and popular uprisings is key in determining how complicit Shakespeare
was with the power structures of Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Considering
his portrayal of the Jack Cade Rebellion in 2 Henry VI, the mob scene in
Julius Caesar, and the unreasonable rabble in Coriolanus, Shakespeare seems to
hold a negative, and therefore orthodox, view of social unrest. On the other
hand, where topical allusions to social unrest surface in such plays as As You
Like It and Romeo and Juliet, plays that transform the tension of social
unrest into pastoral or tragic romance, Shakespeare’s inscription of early
modern events reveals more than the discourse of orthodoxy. The historical
contexts that inform our analyses of the plays include the manner in which
Shakespeare construed history, e.g., his interpretation of Holinshed’s account
of the Jack Cade rebellion in the Chronicles; the enclosure riots and food
riots that were contemporaneous with Shakespeare; and the reception of
Shakespeare that has, on occasion, resulted in riotous behavior.
Suggested topics:
------ Early modern theatre as politically demonstrative; early modern
political demonstrations as theatrical
------ Shakespeare’s conservative representation of rebellion
------ Shakespeare’s populist representation of rebellion
------ The influence of social unrest on the social imaginary, i.e., the early
modern imagination
------ The significance of Shakespeare’s treatment of the rabble to questions
of political agency and historical necessity
------ The anti-theatricalists’ claim that the theatre was insidious because
it had the power to rouse the rabble
------ The ideological uses of Shakespeare’s riots in performance
Please submit 250 word abstracts to Yael Margalit at ymarga@po-box.mcgill.ca.
http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/english/symposium9.html
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