Table of Contents

Contents: Foreword: something of the night, Darren Oldridge; Introduction: Superstitions, literature, history, and the creative imagination, Verena Theile and Andrew D. McCarthy. Part 1 Early Modern Superstitions: Religion, Reformation, and the History of Fear: Popular magic, witchcraft, and Lutheran religious literature, Peter A. Morton; ‘Let not phantasies misgouerne you’: entertainment as religious polemic (The Case of Barnabe Riche), Adam H. Kitzes; Early modern engagements with fear, witchcraft, the devil, and that damned Dr Faustus, Verena Theile. Part 2 Witchcraft on Trial: The supernatural on the stage: an analysis of early modern literary and theatrical representations of Lancashire’s witches and demons, Deborah Lea; Vision on trial in The Late Lancashire Witches, Meg F. Pearson; The joint stool on the early modern stage: witches, wives, and murderers in Macbeth and Arden of Faversham, Kristina E. Caton; The medicalization of ‘midnight hags’: perverting post-menopausal and political motherhood in Macbeth, Hilda H. Ma. Part 3 Stage Dissections: ‘Such a sinner of his memory’: Prospero, Bruno, and the failures of neo-Platonic memory magic, Liberty Stanavage; Prophecies, dreams, and the plays of John Lyly, Per Sivefors; Travelers’ tales: magic and superstition on early modern European and London stages, M.A. Katritzky; Bibliography; Index.