Mirrors in Shakespeare and Early Modern English Drama: Power, Gender and the Magic of the Theatre

Mirrors in the early modern playhouse function as figures of theatricality, reflecting gender dynamics and challenging sovereign power, in this open-access study of their use as stage props and rhetorical devices in plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Combining approaches from literary studies and performance studies with extensive research into material history, Valentina Finger highlights the rich complexity of mirrors and acts of mirroring on the early modern stage. The case stud...