Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe

Verena Theile is Assistant Professor of Early Modern Literature at North Dakota State University, USA. Andrew D. McCarthy is Assistant Professor of Early Modern Literature at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, USA.

Foreword: Something of the Night Introduction: Superstitions, Literature, History, and the Creative Imagination Part 1 Early Modern Superstitions: Religion, Reformation, and the History of Fear 1 Popular Magic, Witchcraft, and Lutheran Religious Literature 2 “Let not Phantasies Misgouerne You”: Entertainment as Religious Polemic (The Case of Barnabe Riche) 3 Early Modern Literary Engagements with Fear, Witchcraft, the Devil, and that Damned Dr. Faustus Part 2 Witchcraft on Trial 4 The Supernatural on the Stage: An Analysis of Early Modern Literary and Theatrical Representations of Lancashire’s Witches and Demons 5 Vision on Trial in The Late Lancashire Witches 6 The Joint-Stool on the Early Modern Stage: Witches, Wives, and Murderers in Macbeth and Arden of Faversham vi Staging the Superstitions of Early Modern Europe 7 The Medicalization of “Midnight Hags”: Perverting Post-Menopausal and Political Motherhood in Macbeth Part 3 Stage Dissections 8 “Such a Sinner of His Memory”: Prospero, Bruno, and the Failures of Neo-Platonic Memory Magic 9 Prophecies, Dreams, and the Plays of John Lyly 10 Travelers’ Tales: Magic and Superstition on Early Modern European and London Stages