Shakespeare’s self-fashioning: social identity and the interiors of the ‘new genrty’ house in early modern England, 1590-1620

Download Statistics

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

Hewitt, Alexandra (2023). Shakespeare’s self-fashioning: social identity and the interiors of the ‘new genrty’ house in early modern England, 1590-1620. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

Preview

Hewitt2023PhDVol1_Redacted.pdf
Text - Redacted Version
Available under License All rights reserved.
Download (9MB) | Preview

Preview

Hewitt2023PhDVol2_Redacted.pdf
Text - Redacted Version
Available under License All rights reserved.
Download (97MB) | Preview

Abstract

This thesis examines the use of the domestic environment in the consolidation and display of ‘new gentry’ status in early modern England. New gentlemen were upwardly mobile members of society who have not, until recently, been recognised as their own distinct group. This is the first study to demonstrate how the form, appearance, decoration and furnishing of the urban house provided a key platform for specifically new gentry self-fashioning. The focus of this project is William Shakespeare’s residence, New Place, in Stratford-upon-Avon from 1597 to 1616. Shakespeare provides an excellent focal point for this investigation. The playwright’s background, education, wealth, profession, and geographic mobility were key traits of new gentry status, but this thesis argues that Shakespeare’s investment in New Place would have been especially valuable to his self-fashioning. Importantly, it finds that this pattern of substantial domestic investment was repeated across this section of early modern society. Through its focus on New Place, this thesis also deals with a distinct methodological challenge: how do you study a lost building? The house Shakespeare once occupied was demolished in the eighteenth century and no building has stood on the site for over 250 years. Following the approach of Lena Cowen Orlin’s article ‘Anne By Indirection’ (2014), this project identifies and analyses a range of comparable, extant evidence (buildings, furnishings, decoration and probate records), to build a picture of the likely appearance of the interiors at New Place in 1616. By reconstructing elements of this property using cognate evidence from the period c.1590 to c.1620, this thesis offers a more comprehensive understanding of the role the built environment and material culture played in self-fashioning at this social level. The methodology and approach taken by this study provides vital contributions to the fields of buildings archaeology and country house studies, while a focus on ‘new gentry’ status offers new perspectives within social history that will further challenge assumptions about the rigid hierarchy associated with early modern society. In developing an interdisciplinary approach to the study of absent heritage, this project is also informed by, and contributes to, museum and heritage studies. This thesis culminates in the presentation of three reconstructed interior spaces at New Place, based on extensive comparable evidence and illustrated by artist Philip Watson, following a design brief which was developed through an iterative research process. The visualisations bring together source material that is usually studied in isolation, but, in reality, was part of one domestic environment. By visualising these rooms in their entirety, this thesis demonstrates how architecture, furnishings and fittings worked together to fashion the identities of their new gentry owners.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):