The Staging of Witchcraft and a "Spectacle of Strangeness": Witchcraft at Court and the Globe

by Shokhan Rasool Ahmed

The Staging of Witchcraft and a "Spectacle of Strangeness": Witchcraft at Court and the Globe presents a new interest in Continental texts on witchcraft coincided with technological advances in the English stage, which made a variety of dramatic effects possible in the private playhouses, such as flying witches, and the appearance of spirits and deities in Elizabethan plays. This book also evaluates how the technology of the Blackfriars playhouse facilitated the appearance of spirits, devils, witches, magicians, deities and dragons on stage. The study investigates the visual spectacle of witchcraft scenes which intersect with the genre of the plays, and it also presents to what extent changing theatrical tastes affect the way that supernatural characters are shown on stage.

126 pages, Paperback

First published October 9, 2014