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Embodiment and Textualization

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Performances of Authorial Presence and Absence

Part of the book series: Adaptation in Theatre and Performance ((ATP))

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Abstract

This chapter argues that the emergence of print culture resulted in the separation between the embodied and the textual, marking a turning point in the process of fixing the author. Turning to Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, this chapter views their two landmark dramatic characters—Doctor Faustus and Prospero—as they epitome two different concepts of authorial presence in the text and beyond. Doctor Faustus is read as a separation of the authorial figure from God, while Prospero is interpreted as the emergence of the author as a colonizer. Modern resonances of these two notions of the authorial figure will be examined in terms of aesthetics and politics of intertextuality (Doctor Faustus) and from the perspective of postcolonial ‘writing back’ (Prospero).

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Correspondence to Silvija Jestrovic .

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Jestrovic, S. (2020). Embodiment and Textualization. In: Performances of Authorial Presence and Absence . Adaptation in Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43290-4_3

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