Papers by Scott A. Trudell
Shakespeare / Text, ed. Claire M. L. Bourne, 2021
An essay on musical loss and survival with a focus on Shakespeare’s Cymbeline.
PMLA, 2020
An essay on writing processes entwined with musical performance, in the PMLA Theories and Methodo... more An essay on writing processes entwined with musical performance, in the PMLA Theories and Methodologies forum on “Aurality and Literacy,”
Renaissance Studies, 2019
In the late 1590s, Elizabeth I and the Levant Company hoped to advance their diplomatic and merca... more In the late 1590s, Elizabeth I and the Levant Company hoped to advance their diplomatic and mercantile agendas in the Mediterranean with the gift of a splendid mechanical organ to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed III. Thomas Dallam, who was charged with installing this fully automated instrument in the Ottoman court, wrote a lively narrative of his journey, including his personal encounter with the Sultan. This essay argues that Dallam is more complex and suggestive writer than scholars have acknowledged, producing not a plainspoken account of his journey but a suggestive sense of belonging among the humans and machines in the Ottoman seraglio. Fueled by a combination of artisan class identity, technological wonder, anxieties about cultural difference, and an expanding sense of personal vulnerability, Dallam imagines a new life at the Topkapı Palace, integrated within an exquisite system of mechanical artifice.
Restoration, 2018
An introduction to the special issue of Restoration on "The Intermedia Restoration" (Fall 2018). ... more An introduction to the special issue of Restoration on "The Intermedia Restoration" (Fall 2018). This special issue takes the interdisciplinary conversation in media studies back to the vibrant intersection of the English Restoration, c. 1600-1700, a period of media novelty upon media novelty, from periodicals and novels to genre painting, opera, and a newly cosmopolitan stage featuring female actors.
Trudell’s essay offers an introduction to the sounds of early modern pageantry. Sixteenth- and se... more Trudell’s essay offers an introduction to the sounds of early modern pageantry. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century royal entries and Lord Mayor’s Shows resounded with the piercing blares of trumpets, the clamor of boisterous crowds, the poetry of dramatic performances, and the melodies of virtuosic child singers. Many of the period’s most prominent poets, from George Gascoigne to Thomas Heywood, wrote ornate verses for outdoor pageants, along with printed records outlining the allegorical significance of the events. Yet pageant books are only a starting point for exploring instrumental music, raucous celebrations, explosions of fireworks, and other ephemeral sounds that were not or could not be recorded. This essay traces how diaries, treatises, plays, poems, and livery company account books convey the rich variety of noises that echoed through the streets of London on pageant days.
An essay on gendered performance in the lute song tradition
Early Modern Theatricality: Oxford 21st Century Approaches to Literature
Shakespeare Quarterly, 2012
Scholars have come to understand Thomas Wyatt's poetry strictly within the social context of the ... more Scholars have come to understand Thomas Wyatt's poetry strictly within the social context of the English court. Yet the fluid relationship between the coterie manuscript practices and wider print readerships that came into contact with Wyatt's paraphrase of the penitential psalms helps to situate his work within a broader interpretive milieu. The Penitential Psalms themselves bear out this context by dramatizing a desire to reach readers and listeners beyond the monarch. Wyatt's poem fashions an interlocutory, adaptable mode of address that displaces David's own voice and opens it to communal reception.
Books by Scott A. Trudell
Unwritten Poetry: Song, Media, and Performance in Early Modern England, 2019
Unwritten Poetry reveals the impact of vocalists and composers upon the poetic culture of early m... more Unwritten Poetry reveals the impact of vocalists and composers upon the poetic culture of early modern England by studying the media through which—and by whom—its songs were made. In a literary field that was never confined to writing, media were not limited to material texts. I argue that the media of Renaissance poetry can be conceived as any node of transmission from singer’s larynx to actor’s body. Through my study of song, I outline a new approach to Renaissance poetry and drama that is grounded not simply in performance history or book history but in a more synthetic media history.
Oxford University Press, 2019
Vocal music was at the heart of English Renaissance poetry and drama. Virtuosic actor-singers red... more Vocal music was at the heart of English Renaissance poetry and drama. Virtuosic actor-singers redefined the theatrical culture of William Shakespeare and his peers. Composers including William Byrd and Henry Lawes shaped the transmission of Renaissance lyric verse. Poets from Philip Sidney to John Milton were fascinated by the disorienting influx of musical performance into their works. Musical performance was a driving force behind the period's theatrical and poetic movements, yet its importance to literary history has long been ignored or effaced.
This book reveals the impact of vocalists and composers upon the poetic culture of early modern England by studying the media through which--and by whom--its songs were made. In a literary field that was never confined to writing, media were not limited to material texts. Scott Trudell argues that the media of Renaissance poetry can be conceived as any node of transmission from singer's larynx to actor's body. Through his study of song, Trudell outlines a new approach to Renaissance poetry and drama that is grounded not simply in performance history or book history but in a more synthetic media history.
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Papers by Scott A. Trudell
Books by Scott A. Trudell
This book reveals the impact of vocalists and composers upon the poetic culture of early modern England by studying the media through which--and by whom--its songs were made. In a literary field that was never confined to writing, media were not limited to material texts. Scott Trudell argues that the media of Renaissance poetry can be conceived as any node of transmission from singer's larynx to actor's body. Through his study of song, Trudell outlines a new approach to Renaissance poetry and drama that is grounded not simply in performance history or book history but in a more synthetic media history.
This book reveals the impact of vocalists and composers upon the poetic culture of early modern England by studying the media through which--and by whom--its songs were made. In a literary field that was never confined to writing, media were not limited to material texts. Scott Trudell argues that the media of Renaissance poetry can be conceived as any node of transmission from singer's larynx to actor's body. Through his study of song, Trudell outlines a new approach to Renaissance poetry and drama that is grounded not simply in performance history or book history but in a more synthetic media history.