Voice in Motion

Staging Gender, Shaping Sound in Early Modern England

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Drama History & Criticism, Drama, British & Irish, Nonfiction, Entertainment, Performing Arts
Cover of the book Voice in Motion by Gina Bloom, University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Gina Bloom ISBN: 9780812201314
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc. Publication: April 19, 2013
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press Language: English
Author: Gina Bloom
ISBN: 9780812201314
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication: April 19, 2013
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press
Language: English

Voice in Motion explores the human voice as a literary, historical, and performative motif in early modern English drama and culture, where the voice was frequently represented as struggling, even failing, to work. In a compelling and original argument, Gina Bloom demonstrates that early modern ideas about the efficacy of spoken communication spring from an understanding of the voice's materiality. Voices can be cracked by the bodies that produce them, scattered by winds when transmitted as breath through their acoustic environment, stopped by clogged ears meant to receive them, and displaced by echoic resonances. The early modern theater underscored the voice's volatility through the use of pubescent boy actors, whose vocal organs were especially vulnerable to malfunction.

Reading plays by Shakespeare, Marston, and their contemporaries alongside a wide range of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century texts—including anatomy books, acoustic science treatises, Protestant sermons, music manuals, and even translations of Ovid—Bloom maintains that cultural representations and theatrical enactments of the voice as "unruly matter" undermined early modern hierarchies of gender. The uncontrollable physical voice creates anxiety for men, whose masculinity is contingent on their capacity to discipline their voices and the voices of their subordinates. By contrast, for women the voice is most effective not when it is owned and mastered but when it is relinquished to the environment beyond. There, the voice's fragile material form assumes its full destabilizing potential and becomes a surprising source of female power. Indeed, Bloom goes further to query the boundary between the production and reception of vocal sound, suggesting provocatively that it is through active listening, not just speaking, that women on and off the stage reshape their world.

Bringing together performance theory, theater history, theories of embodiment, and sound studies, this book makes a significant contribution to gender studies and feminist theory by challenging traditional conceptions of the links among voice, body, and self.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Voice in Motion explores the human voice as a literary, historical, and performative motif in early modern English drama and culture, where the voice was frequently represented as struggling, even failing, to work. In a compelling and original argument, Gina Bloom demonstrates that early modern ideas about the efficacy of spoken communication spring from an understanding of the voice's materiality. Voices can be cracked by the bodies that produce them, scattered by winds when transmitted as breath through their acoustic environment, stopped by clogged ears meant to receive them, and displaced by echoic resonances. The early modern theater underscored the voice's volatility through the use of pubescent boy actors, whose vocal organs were especially vulnerable to malfunction.

Reading plays by Shakespeare, Marston, and their contemporaries alongside a wide range of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century texts—including anatomy books, acoustic science treatises, Protestant sermons, music manuals, and even translations of Ovid—Bloom maintains that cultural representations and theatrical enactments of the voice as "unruly matter" undermined early modern hierarchies of gender. The uncontrollable physical voice creates anxiety for men, whose masculinity is contingent on their capacity to discipline their voices and the voices of their subordinates. By contrast, for women the voice is most effective not when it is owned and mastered but when it is relinquished to the environment beyond. There, the voice's fragile material form assumes its full destabilizing potential and becomes a surprising source of female power. Indeed, Bloom goes further to query the boundary between the production and reception of vocal sound, suggesting provocatively that it is through active listening, not just speaking, that women on and off the stage reshape their world.

Bringing together performance theory, theater history, theories of embodiment, and sound studies, this book makes a significant contribution to gender studies and feminist theory by challenging traditional conceptions of the links among voice, body, and self.

More books from University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.

Cover of the book Gray Panthers by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Unraveling Somalia by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book What Caused the Financial Crisis by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Fanny Kemble by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book The Dragon and the Snake by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book The Purposes of Paradise by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book The "Alexandreis" of Walter of Chatilon by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Archives of American Time by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Driving Detroit by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book The Organization Man by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Iraq at a Distance by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Women as Unseen Characters by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Clara Barton, Professional Angel by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia by Gina Bloom
Cover of the book Spectacles of Empire by Gina Bloom
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy