Synopses & Reviews
Nora Johnson's study of actors who wrote plays in early modern England uncovers important links between acting and authorship. The book traces the careers of Robert Armin, Nathan Field, Anthony Munday and Thomas Heywood, actors who were powerfully interested in marketing themselves as authors and celebrities; but Johnson argues that the authorship they imagined had little to do with modern ideas of control and ownership. Finally, the book repositions Shakespeare in relation to actors, considering Shakespeare's famous silence about his own work as one strategy among many available to writers for the stage. The Actor as Playwright provides an alternative to the debate between traditional and materialist readers of early modern dramatic authorship, arguing that both approaches are weakened by a reluctance to look outside the Shakespearean canon for evidence.
Review
"Johnson's style is lively, engaging and packed full of anecdotal detail, which brings a vividness and strong interest to her discussion."
- Early Modern Literary Studies"Refreshing and absorbing."
- Studies in English Literature
Synopsis
Uncovering important links between acting and authorship in early modern England, Nora Johnson traces the careers of Robert Armin, Nathan Field, Anthony Munday and Thomas Heywood, actors strongly interested in marketing themselves as authors and celebrities. However, the authorship they imagined had little to do with modern ideas of control and ownership. Shakespeare's famous silence about his own work is one strategy among many available to writers for the stage. Johnson provides an alternative to the debate between traditional and materialist readers of dramatic authorship.
Synopsis
Uncovers important links between acting and authorship in early modern England.
Synopsis
This book studies four actors of Shakespeare's time, who also wrote plays and marketed themselves as authors and celebrities; but Johnson argues that authorship as they constructed it had little to do with modern ideas of control and ownership.
About the Author
Nora Johnson is Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature, Swarthmore College.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Playing author; 1. Publishing the fool: Robert Armin and the collective production of mirth; 2. The actor-playwright and the true poet: Nathan Field, Ben Jonson, and the prerogatives of the author; 3. Anthony Munday and the spectacle of martyrdom; 4. 'Some zanie with his mimick action': Thomas Heywood and the staging of humanist authority; Coda: the Shakespearean silence.