| Description |
1 online resource : illustrations (black and white) |
| Contents |
The emptying of gesture: neurology and the British romantic stage -- From gestures to nerves: Woyzeck and the Barbel fish -- The nervous system: melodrama, railway trauma, and systemic risk -- The inner drama of the body: Wagner's neural aesthetics -- Theatre's revenge: Charcot and the Grand Guignol -- The prison-house of nerves: Zola and Strindberg -- Conclusion: nervous hermeneutics and the theatre of cruelty |
| Summary |
19th-century investigations into the nervous system produced discoveries that changed ways of thinking far beyond the scientific community. Scientists began to conceive of the subject not principally as soul, mind, or even brain, but instead as a complex of organically interacting mechanisms, many of them operating more or less autonomously and unconsciously. Meanwhile, theatrical works of the time by Shelley, Wagner, Dickens, Buchner, Zola, and Strindberg, sought to play directly on the nerves of the spectators, comprising a coherent genre Matthew Wilson Smith has dubbed the 'theatres of sensation.' 'The Nervous Stage' examines the relations between theatrical practices and the scientific study of the nervous system, arguing that to a degree, modern theatre emerged out of the interaction between these two apparently disparate fields |
| Notes |
Previous edition issued in print: 2017 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Audience |
Specialized |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from home page (viewed on October 17, 2017) |
| Subject |
Neurosciences and the arts.
|
|
Drama -- 19th century -- History and criticism
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Drama -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
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Drama
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Neurosciences and the arts
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780190644116 |
|
0190644117 |
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