To Embody the Marvelous

The Making of Illusions in Early Modern Spain
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8265-0180-6
Verlag: Vanderbilt University Press

Buch, Englisch, 224 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

In its exploration of puppetry and animation as the performative media of choice for mastering the art of illusion, To Embody the Marvelous engages with early modern notions of wonder in religious, artistic, and social contexts.

From jointed, wood-carved figures of Christ, saintly marionettes that performed hagiographical dramas, experimental puppets and automata in Cervantes' Don Quixote, and the mechanical sets around which playwright CalderÓn de la Barca devised secular magic shows to deconstruct superstitions, these historical and fictional artifacts reenvisioned religious, artistic, and social notions that led early modern society to critically wrestle with enchantment and disenchantment.

The use of animated performance objects in Spanish theatrical contexts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became one of the most effective pedagogical means to engage with civil society. Regardless of social strata, readers and spectators alike were caught up in a paradigm shift wherein belief systems were increasingly governed by reason-even though the discursive primacy of supernatural doxa and Christian wonder remained firmly entrenched. Thanks to their potential for motion, religious and profane puppets, automata, and mechanical stage props deployed a rationalized sense of wonder that illustrates the relationship between faith and reason, reevaluates the boundaries of fiction in art and entertainment cultures, acknowledges the rise of science and technology, and questions normative authority.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgattungen, Filmgenre
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Tanz Andere Darstellende Künste
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Stages of Animation
- Chapter 1 Mechanics of Reductionism
- Socio-political Ticking
- Pious Technologies
- The Lives of Shadows
- Chapter 2 Matters of God
- Beyond the Altar
- Towards the Holy Puppet
- Handling the Descent
- The Jointed Christ Figure Reimagined
- Chapter 3 Articulating Saintliness
- Wooden Saints
- The Archeology of the MÁquina Real
- Modern Object-Centric Sainthood
- Chapter 4 Unruly Puppets
- The Estrangement of Illusions
- Operatizing the Puppet
- Disarticulated Remediations
- Chapter 5 Technologies of Wonder
- Making Wonderlands
- Enchantment Interrupted
- Modern Re-enchantments
- Chapter 6 Trapdoors to DesengaÑo
- Barely Humans
- Animated Thresholds
- Spatial Prosthetics
- Secret Passageways Refurbished
- Conclusion
- When Statues Move
- Work cited
- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Esther FernÁndez is an associate professor in the department of modern and classical literatures and cultures at Rice University.