| Popis: |
The final chapter spotlights the role of the theatre industry as a driver of human nocturnalization in Stuart Britain. As a court dramatist, Shakespeare was directly involved in the late-night revels of the Stuart court, but remained ambivalent about the court masque and its enactment both on-stage and off of the state’s vanquishing of darkness through artificial illumination. The chapter juxtaposes the nocturnal carnivalesque in plays like Antony and Cleopatra and Timon of Athens with tragic anti-masques of night-induced disability in Macbeth and King Lear that expose the flattering of James as an all-seeing, sun-like monarch. The chapter then links these divergent responses to the respective lighting levels in the hyper-illuminated Whitehall and the more dimly lit Blackfriars. Detecting an ugly correlation between nyctophobia and racism, the chapter gauges whether Shakespearean drama reinforces prejudice against other races, species, and abilities, or might instil a salutary acceptance of darkness and difference. |
