Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Love's Metamorphosis: John Lyly

Love's Metamorphosis: John Lyly

Scragg, Leah

Paperback

Series: Revels Plays

Literary CriticismPlays

ISBN10: 0719072476
ISBN13: 9780719072475
Publisher: Manchester Univ Pr
Published: Jun 1 2015
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.41
Height: 0.33 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

First performed in the 1580s, Love's Metamorphosis is widely regarded as the most elegantly structured of Lyly's plays. The plot looks back to the account of Erisichthon's punishment for the desecration of Ceres' grove in Ovid's Metamorphosis, but the Ovidian story is woven into a wider network of interests turning upon aspects of love.

A series of allusions to earlier Lylian compositions allows the play to be viewed in terms of a continuum of work, exploring the status of Cupid and the nature and extent of his power. The play is notable for the articulate resistance offered by the female characters towards the desires of their lovers and the wishes of authority figures, while Protea, is of particular interest to feminist criticism as a striking example of a woman empowered rather than marginalised by the loss of her virgin state.

Revived towards the close of the sixteenth century, the play is of importance to theatre historians in that it is the only one of Lyly's comedies known to have passed from Paul's to a different troupe. It is newly edited here from the sole early witness, the quarto of 1601.

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