Theaters of Intention: Drama and the Law in Early Modern England. (Reviews).Luke Wilson. Theaters of Intention: Drama and the Law in Early Modern England Stanford, California Stanford is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 13,315 at the 2000 census. Stanford is an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County and is adjacent to the city of Palo Alto. : Stanford University Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president. Press, 2000. x + 362 pp. $49.50. ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m : 0-8047-3414-3. Luke Wilson's Theaters of lntention is a study of the way early modern developments in common law thinking about intention and agency in criminal and contract law affected the presentation of intention and agency in early modern drama. The book's argument is that "the complicated procedural and conceptual developments in legal history produced and satisfied a demand for a sophisticated language of intentional action, and that this language became instrumental in parallel developments in the theater's increasing ability to produce representations of human beings acting out routines of practical reasoning" (4). For Wilson the early modern period saw important developments in the legal understanding of criminal intention, or mens rea As an element of criminal responsibility, a guilty mind; a guilty or wrongful purpose; a criminal intent. Guilty knowledge and wilfulness. A fundamental principle of Criminal Law is that a crime consists of both a mental and a physical element. , and even more so in the understanding of intentionality intentionality Property of being directed toward an object. Intentionality is exhibited in various mental phenomena. Thus, if a person experiences an emotion toward an object, he has an intentional attitude toward it. in contract law, and he is interested in tracing the way legal notions permit "the historical reconstruction of what kinds of experiences were associated with intention during the early modern period" (7). Wilson's work is ali gned with other recent early modern studies that seek "the rehabilitation of agency" (8) against various poststructuralist assaults on the idea. This is a complex rehabilitation, however, and the movement "to provide some assurance that agency was there, that it was real, tangible, verifiable," then permits "an escape from that confirmation" (263), for instance in early modern conundrums of "agentless action, a grammatical paradox still popular in contemporary literary theory from Foucault to Judith Butler Judith Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American post-structuralist philosopher who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. " (23). Theaters of Intention has been ten years or so in development and teasing out its material. It centers on two previously published papers that feature extended discussions of two playwrights and two plays: Shakespeare and Hamlet and Ben Jonson and Bartholomew Fair Bartholomew Fair is a comedy in five acts by Ben Jonson, the last written of his four great comedies. It was first staged on October 31, 1614 at the Hope Theatre by the Lady Elizabeth's Men. -- the discussion of Bartholomew Fair and related matters now covers almost 100 pages. The book is completed with chapters centered on Shakespeare's Timon of Athens Timon of Athens lost wealth, lived frugally; became misanthropic when deserted by friends. [Br. Lit.: Timon of Athens] See : Asceticism , Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus Doctor Faustus could refer to:
(Latin: “he has undertaken”) In common law, an action to recover damages for breach of contract, especially an implied or quasi contract. It developed in early English law as a form of recovery for the negligent performance of an undertaking (e.g. in early modern contract law. The discussion of Timon of Athens maps the change from relations based on promise to those based on contract, a change that affected, for instance, the relations between the various agents involved in the business of theater. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus brings criminal and contractual intention together in the act of contracting to sell one's soul to the devil. Nobody and Somebody raises the issue of agentless action, an idea at work in wordplay from Polyphemus in The Odyssey crying "Noman is killing me" to Desdemona in Othello identifying "Nobody" as her killer. Here early modern intentionality goes furthest toward anticipating poststructuralist thought. Wilson's tracing of legal sources for ideas, situations, and vocabulary concerning intention and agency in the drama texts he studies is convincing. In part this is because in many cases he is drawing upon connections that have been long recognized. The original contribution here is in the depth and detail of Wilson's readings of these few plays and his elaboration of the complexity of the issues of intention they dramatize dram·a·tize v. dram·a·tized, dram·a·tiz·ing, dram·a·tiz·es v.tr. 1. To adapt (a literary work) for dramatic presentation, as in a theater or on television or radio. 2. . |
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