Performing Gods in Classical Antiquity and the Age of Shakespeare

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The gods have much to tell us about performance. When human actors portray deities onstage, such divine epiphanies reveal not only the complexities of mortals playing gods but also the nature of theatrical spectacle itself. The very impossibility of rendering the gods in all their divine splendor in a truly convincing way lies at the intersection of divine power and the power of the theater. This book pursues these dynamics on the stages of ancient Athens and Rome as well on those of Renaissance England to shed new light on theatrical performance. The authors reveal how gods appear onstage both to astound and to dramatize the very machinations by which theatrical performance operates. Offering an array of case studies featuring both canonical and lesser-studied texts, this volume discusses work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Plautus as well as Beaumont, Heywood, Jonson, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. This book uniquely brings together the joint perspectives of two experts on classical and Renaissance drama. This volume will appeal to students and enthusiasts of literature, classics, theater, and performance studies.

Reviews

This work shows great erudition, since in addition to the main sources of study, there are numerous allusions to other classical and neoclassical texts. The fact that it features analysis of both tragedy and comedy is a rarity and therefore one of the volumes strengths. Ultimately, it offers a dialogue between literature, theatre and performance, anthropology and religion in a pragmatic and reinvigorating way. Undoubtedly, it will be a work of reference for researchers of classical reception, drama performance, divinity and the English Renaissance. * The Classical Review *
Performing Gods is a lively, wide-ranging, illuminating guide to the many ways in which the stories of gods and humans in classical antiquity influenced writers in the age of Shakespeare. A pleasure to read, this fine study should appeal both to the general reader and to students of Renaissance or classical literature. -- Warren Chernaik, Emeritus Professor of English, University of London, UK

Author Bio

Dustin W. Dixon is Assistant Professor of Classics, Grinnell College, USA, where he teaches courses on ancient literature and culture. His research on drama appears in journals such as Classical Philology, Classical Quarterly, and Classical Receptions Journal. John S. Garrison is a Professor of English at Grinnell College. His books include Glass (2015), Shakespeare at Peace (with Kyle Pivetti, 2018), and Shakespeare and the Afterlife (2019). In 2021, he was named a Guggenheim Fellow.