{"product_id":"performances-of-the-sacred-in-late-medieval-and-early-modern-england-9789042018051","title":"Performances of the Sacred in Late Medieval and Early Modern England","description":"Communities have often shaped themselves around cultural spaces set apart and declared sacred. For this purpose, churches, priests or scholars no less than writers frequently participate in giving sacred figures a local habitation and, sometimes, voice or name. But whatever sites, rites, images or narratives have thus been constructed, they also raise some complex questions: how can the sacred be presented and yet guarded, claimed yet concealed, staged in public and at the same time kept exclusive?\u003cbr\u003eSuch questions are pursued here in a variety of English texts historically employed to manifest and manage versions of the sacred. But since their performances inhabit social space, this often functions as a theatrical arena which is also used to stage modes of dissent, difference, sacrifice and sacrilege. In this way, all aspects of social life – the family, the nation, the idea of kingship, gender identities, courtly ideals, love making or smoking – may become sacralized and buttress claims for power by recourse to a repertoire of religious symbolic forms.\u003cbr\u003eThrough critical readings of central texts and authors – such as \u003ci\u003eSir Gawain, Foxe,\u003c\/i\u003e Sidney, Shakespeare, Donne, or Vaughan – as well as less canonical examples – the Croxton play, Buchanan, Lanyer, Wroth, or the tobacco pamphlets – the twelve contributions all engage with the crucial question how, and to what end, performances of the sacred affect, or effect, cultural transformation.","brand":"Susanne Rupp","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48309290336507,"sku":"9789042018051","price":149.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/3917\/9771\/files\/9789042018051.jpg?v=1772491613","url":"https:\/\/indiepubs.com\/products\/performances-of-the-sacred-in-late-medieval-and-early-modern-england-9789042018051","provider":"IndiePubs","version":"1.0","type":"link"}