Dynamic Matter: Transforming Renaissance Objects

Published by Penn State University Press 2022

Dynamic Matter

Transforming Renaissance Objects

Edited by: Jennifer Linhart Wood

In the series Cultural Inquiries in English Literature, 1400–1700

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780271094120

Overview
Contents

About this book

Dynamic Matter investigates the life histories of Renaissance objects. Eschewing the critical tendency to study how objects relate to human needs and desires, this work foregrounds the objects themselves, demonstrating their potential to transform their environments as they travel across time and space.

Integrating early modern material theories with recent critical approaches in Actor-Network Theory and object-oriented ontology, this volume extends Aristotle’s theory of dynameos—which conceptualizes matter as potentiality—and applies it to objects featured in early modern texts such as Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, and William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Individual chapters explore the dynameos of matter by examining its manifestations in particular forms: combs are inscribed with words and brushed through human hair; feathers are incorporated into garments and artwork; Prince Rupert’s glasswork drops explode; a whale becomes animated by the power of a magical bracelet; and books are drowned. These case studies highlight the potentiality matter itself possesses and that which it activates in other matter.

A theorization of objects grounded in Renaissance materialist thought, Dynamic Matter examines the richness of things themselves; the larger, multiple, and changing networks in which things circulate; and the networks created by these transformative objects.

In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Anna Riehl Bertolet, Erika Mary Boeckeler, Naomi Howell, Emily E. F. Philbrick, Josie Schoel, Maria Shmygol, Edward McLean Test, Abbie Weinberg, and Sarah F. Williams.

Author / Editor information

Wood Jennifer Linhart :

Jennifer Linhart Wood teaches at George Mason University and serves on the editorial team for Shakespeare Quarterly at the Folger Shakespeare Library. She is the author of Sounding Otherness in Early Modern Drama and Travel: Uncanny Vibrations in the English Archive, winner of the 2021 Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society’s David Bevington Award for Best New Book in Early Drama Studies.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: Transformative Materiality and Renaissance Dynamics Jennifer Linhart Wood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I Objects Within / Without the Body
Chapter 1 “Farre Fetched and Deare Bought” The Global Cosmetic Exchange Between Elizabeth I, Melike Safiye Sultan, and the Kira Esperanza Malchi Josie Schoel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
Chapter 2 Comb Poems Erika Mary Boeckeler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Chapter 3 Variable Vestments and Clothing Conversions: Piecing Out the Past in Tudor Exeter Naomi Howell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
Part II Networking Objects
Chapter 4 Bird- People, Utopias, Arte Plumaria: The Influence of Native American Feathers on Renaissance Literature and Culture Edward McLean Test Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Chapter 5 Needlework Patterns on the Move: Traveling Toward (Re)incarnation Anna Riehl Bertolet Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
Chapter 6 “Whose Least Part Crackt, the Whole Does Fly” The Explosive Case of Prince Rupert’s Drops Abbie Weinberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Part III Staging Properties
Chapter 7 Traveling Music and Theatrics: Jemmy LaRoche’s “Raree Show” Sarah F. Williams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Chapter 8 Protean Objects in William Percy’s The Aphrodysial or Sea-Feast Maria Shmygol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Chapter 9 “I’ll Drown My Book” Prospero’s Grimoire, Adrift Emily E. F. Philbrick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265