I have nothing especially exciting in the way of final thoughts other than to say thanks, Nora, for organizing this. It was a lot of fun revisiting this play, and the rich variety of insights that everyone offered made it a really enlightening experience. Hope everyone is well. Keep me in the loop if you’ve got any other wacky plays you want to talk about.

Like Peter, I was struck by the references to the devil as a hound and what seems like an obvious reference to Dog in The Witch of Edmonton.  He’s not an actual dog here (Merlin references his human shape), but is he doggish?

There’s actually a ton of intertextual references to other witch/magic plays in this act. In addition to the Witch of…[Read more]

Alright! This is what I came for: antic dances, devil charms, quotes from Doctor Faustus, antic dances!

I feel like a pretty solid chunk of my research career so far has involved saying “But what IS an antic dance?” “What IS hollow and infernal music?”

But let’s back up a bit first. I’m really impressed with just how comprehensively the term…[Read more]

Late to the party once again, but I just wanted to quickly add a half-formed thought about how highly concerned this act seems to be with women as threats to masculinity. There’s an interesting parallel being drawn here between Joan and Artesia, both of whom are called “witch” and “devil” by men whose ideas of themselves are threatened by them.…[Read more]

This might just be because I read it recently and it’s on my mind, but the introduction of Artesia is giving me “Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay” vibes. Artesia has a kind of magical power over Aurelius in a way that echoes both Friar Bacon’s magical silencing of his rival (and do I vaguely recall that there’s a magical context later in this play?),…[Read more]

Hi everyone. I just learned this existed tonight, so I’m also a bit of a latecomer. I’m Andrew (he/him/his), and I teach and very occasionally do something like research at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario (kinda north-east of Toronto). My work centers on music in the early modern theatre and I am very slowly embarking (think, like,…[Read more]