Within a theoretical framework that makes use of history psychoanalysis and anthropology The Early Modern Corpse and Shakespeare s Theatre explores the relationship of the public theatre to the question of what constituted the dead in early modern English culture Susan Zimmerman argues that concepts of the corpse as a semi animate generative and indeterminate entity were deeply rooted in medieval religious culture Such concepts ran counter to early modern discourses that sought to harden categorical distinctions between body spirit animate inanimate in particular the attacks of Reformists on the materiality of dead idols and the rationale of the new anatomy for publicly dissecting dead bodies Zimmerman contends that within this context theatrical representations of the corpse or corpse revenant as seen here in the tragedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries uniquely showcased the theatre s own ideological and performative agency Key FeaturesOriginal in its conjunction of critical theory Bataille Kristeva Lacan Benjamin with an historical account of the shifting status of the corpse in late medieval and early modern England The first study to demonstrate connections between the meanings attached to the material body in early modern Protestantism the practice of anatomical dissection and the English public theatre Strong market appeal to scholars and graduate students with interests in the theatre of Shakespeare and his contemporaries early modern religion and science and literary theory Relevant to advanced undergraduates taking widely taught courses in Shakespeare and in Renaissance drama

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