Constructing Monsters in Shakespeare's Drama and Early Modern Culture

This text argues for the crucial place of the "monster" in the early modern imagination. Mark Thornton Burnett traces the metaphorical significance of "monstrous" forms across a range of early modern exhibition spaces - fairground displays, "cabinets of curiosity" and court entertainments - to contend that the "monster" finds its most intriguing manifestation in the investments and practices of contemporary theatre. The study's fresh readings of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson make a powerful case for the drama's contribution to debates about the "extraordinary body".