[Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare] [Author: Harris, Jonathan Gil] [February, 2011]

by Jonathan Gil Harris

In Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare, Jonathan Gil Harris challenges the way in which we conventionally understand physical objects and their relation to history. Turning to Renaissance theories of matter, Harris considers the profound untimeliness of things, focusing particularly on Shakespeare's stage materials. He reveals that many "Renaissance" objects were actually survivals from an older time - the medieval monastic properties that, post-Reformation, were recycled as stage props in the public playhouses, or the old Roman walls of London, still visible in Shakespeare's time. Then, as now, old objects were inherited, recycled, repurposed; they were polytemporal or palimpsested.

Paperback

First published October 1, 2008