Medieval and Early Modern Court Theatre and the Construction of Scotland
Project: Medieval and Early Modern Court Theatre and the Construction of Scotland
Medieval and Early Modern Court Theatre and the Construction of Scotland
Author: Lesley Mickel
Published: Oxford University Press, Early Modern Literary Geographies Series
Exploring theatrical representation of Scots and Scotland and the emergence of national and political identities, and that courtly and popular culture often overlapped in Scotland, producing richly resonant performances expressing both royal and populist interests, coming together in a proto-nationalist discourse.
Analysis of archives, eye-witness accounts, visual art, textual scripts, architecture, material objects and contemporary reconstructions, will be combined to offer a unique insight into how these ephemeral theatricals were executed, their impact on performers and spectators, their implication in a wider social and political discourse, and their influence on subsequent court culture south of the border and beyond.
A key tenet of the monograph is that Scottish court culture was always European in outlook and that theatrical renditions of Highland Scottishness resonated in courts in France and Germany.
After an initial chapter reviewing what kind of performances took place in Medieval and Early Modern Scotland, and redefining what may be understood as theatre in this context, the book will investigate tournaments, hunting expeditions, festivals, games, guisings, masks, as well as more obvious instances of theatrical performance, ranging from James IV’s Tournament of The Wild Knight and Black Lady (1507/8) to Weckherlin’s Triumphall Shewes (1616).
The argument will show that not only did Scottish courtly performative practice impact on the court masques and entertainments that evolved under James VI and I in Westminster, but also that James’s aspirations for a Great Britain entailed a contested re-evaluation of Highland and Scottish culture as part of a process of national integration, a process which also left its traces on European courtly festivities.