1st Edition

Civic Performance Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London

Edited By J. Caitlin Finlayson, Amrita Sen Copyright 2020
    268 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    268 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London brings together a group of essays from across multiple fields of study that examine the socio-cultural, political, economic, and aesthetic dimensions of pageantry in sixteenth and seventeenth-century London.





    This collection engages with modern interest in the spectacle and historical performances of pageantry and entertainments, including royal entries, progresses, coronation ceremonies, Lord Mayor’s Shows, and processions. Through a discussion of the extant texts, visual records, archival material, and emerging projects in the digital humanities, the chapters elucidate the forms in which the period itself recorded its public rituals, pageantry, and ephemeral entertainments. The diversity of approaches contained in these chapters reflects the collaborative nature of pageantry and civic entertainments, as well as the broad socio-cultural resonances of this form of drama, and in doing so offers a study that is multi-faceted and wide-ranging, much like civic performance itself.





    Ideal for scholars of Early Modern global politics, economics, and culture; literary and performance studies; print culture; and the digital humanities, Civic Performance casts a new lens on street pageantry and entertainments in the historically and culturally significant locus of Early Modern London.

    List of Figures  Notes on Contributors  Acknowledgements  Introduction - J. Caitlin Finlayson and Amrita Sen  Part I: Civic to Global  1. ‘To the Honour of our Nation abroad’: The Merchant as Adventurer in Civic Pageantry - Tracey Hill  2. Locating the Rhinoceros and Indian: Strangers, Trade, and East India Company in Thomas Heywood’s Porta Pietatis - Amrita Sen  3. "Cleopatra in Her Barge": Anne Boleyn’s Coronation Pageants and the Production of English Cultural Capital - Sarah Crover  4. The Unspoken Language of Aliens, or the Spectacular Conversation between Visiting English and Dutch that Transcended Time and Space - Nancy J. Kay  Part II: Material Encounters  5.The Social and Political Dynamics of the Lord Mayor’s Show, c. 1550-1700 - Ian W. Archer  6. Arion’s Harp, Apollo’s Lute: The Instrumental Sounds of London’s Lord Mayors’ Shows - Jennifer Linhart Wood  7. Financial Encounter Customs: Tradition and Form in London’s Civic Pageantry - Jill Ingram  Part III: Methodologies for Re-viewing Performance  8. The Duke of Lennox and Civic Entertainments - David M. Bergeron  9. Stephen Harrison’s The Arches of Triumph (1604) and James I’s Royal Entry in the London Literary Marketplace - J. Caitlin Finlayson  10. Musical Transformations of the City Soundscape: King James I’s Entry into London in 1604 - Katherine Butler  11. Building a Digital Geospatial Anthology of the Mayoral Shows - Janelle Jenstad and Mark Kaethler  Index

    Biography

    J. Caitlin Finlayson is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, USA.



    Amrita Sen is Associate Professor and Deputy Director of UGC-HRDC at the University of Calcutta, India.