"First published in hardback by Edinburgh University Press, 2006, and in paperback in 2012"--Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
List of illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Defining beauty in Renaissance culture -- Early modern cosmetic culture -- Cosmetic restoration in Jacobean tragedy -- John Webster and the culture of cosmetics -- Jonson's cosmetic ritual -- Cosmetics and poetics in Shakespearean comedy -- "Deceived with ornament": Shakespeare's Venice -- "Flattering unction": cosmetics in Hamlet -- Epilogue -- Bibliography -- Index.
Summary:
This revised edition examines how the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries dramatize the Renaissance preoccupation with cosmetics. The author explores the then-contentious issue of female beauty and identifies a "culture of cosmetics", which finds its visual identity on the early modern stage. She also examines cosmetic recipes and anti-cosmetic literature focusing on their relationship to drama in its representations of gender, race, politics and beauty. This book offers a new analysis of the construction of whiteness as a racial signifier; provides an original insight into women's cosmetic practice through an exploration of ingredients, methods and materials used to create cosmetics and the perception of make-up in Shakespeare's time; includes numerous cosmetic recipes from the early modern period found in printed books and never published in a modern edition.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.