| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Cover -- Titlepage -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Introduction: Fortune's Early Modern Turn: From PaganGoddess to Proto-Capitalist Economics -- 1 The Rise and Fall of Fortune: Imperial World History and England's Commercial Turn in Doctor Faustus (c.1588/89) and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (c.1589/90) -- Imperial Ambition and the "Form of Fortune'' in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus -- The Forging of English Empire in Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay -- 2 Fortunate Returns: Venturing, Performance, and the Hidden Hand of Providence in The Merchant of Venice (c.1596) and The Four Prentices of London (c.1594) -- Sleights of Hand: Simulations of Adventure and Risk in The Merchant of Venice -- Theatrical Contrivance and Miraculous Reunion in The Four Prentices of London -- 3 Navigating Fortune's Global Compass: Economies of Value and Affective Labor in Old Fortunatus (c.1600) and The Fair Maid of the West, Part 1 (c.1600) -- The Moral and Economic Regulation of Fortune in Old Fortunatus -- Gold Digger or Golden Girl?: Negotiating Value and Worth in Fair Maid -- 4 Embracing the Unknown: Fortune at Sea and Theatrical Risk in Hamlet (1600) and Pericles (c.1608) -- Signs Taken for Divinity: Hamlet's Voyage and the Sea of Dramatic Potentiality -- Riding out the Storm in Pericles: Patience, Pleasure, and Profit -- Afterword: The Darker Side of Fortune: Taking Stock ofFortune's Ethical and Racial Costs -- Bibliography -- Index |
| Summary |
"Offering in-depth discussions of plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Heywood, Dekker, and others, this study considers how England’s economic expansion through global commerce and nascent colonial exploration produced new understandings of the role of fortune in the world, both as a philosophy of chance and luck and a means by which to accumulate wealth. While largely derided as a sinful, earthly distraction in the Boethian tradition of the Middle Ages, fortune made a comeback on the Renaissance stage as a force associated with virtuous opportunities, valiant risks, and ennobling adventures. Fortune’s Empire shows how a pagan goddess who blindly spins the wheel of our lives becomes an avatar for new understandings of risk and investment that underwrite capitalist systems of value in a period of globalization. The book also demonstrates how fortune helped to foster a philosophy of action in a Protestant culture where divine providence remained largely incomprehensible and inaccessible to human consciousness. Like the history of English seaborne expansion, the history of English theater was also a history of fortune. For theater itself depended on novel commercial structures that were vulnerable to speculation and risk, and the success of its live performances required careful management of accident, contingency, and unpredictable audience responses. Drawing attention to an archive of plays dramatizing maritime travel, trade, and adventure, Fortune’s Empire shows how the popular stage shaped evolving understandings of fortune by cultivating new viewing practices and mechanisms of theatrical wonder, as well as proper ethical responses to new forms of economic investment"--Publisher's description |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on online resource; title from home page (Oxford Academic, viewed on August 18, 2023) |
| Subject |
English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism
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Fortune in literature.
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Economics in literature.
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Economics
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English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan
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Fortune
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780192638168 |
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0192638165 |
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9780192638175 |
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0192638173 |
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9780191904554 |
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0191904554 |
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