Word: restorationism
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Ayanna Thompson: Well, stage torture really begins during the Restoration. It seems that in the Renaissance they didn't have a lot of depictions of torture on stage. They followed more of the classical idea that you don't show violence on stage. If you think about Shakespeare's plays...
AT: Gloucester's eyes are the one big exception to that rule. But it's a rather strange scene of torture because they're not trying to get any information from him and they don't use any torture devices. It's a spontaneous moment of violence. But in the...
THC: How did this reflect violence in the culture? During the Renaissance at least, there were public executions, particularly drawings and quarterings. Were these still a part of Restoration culture?
AT: Public executions were still a part of Restoration culture, but executions and torture are very different. Executions were going on a lot during the Restoration, but torture was another case. Even during the Renaissance, there weren't actually any legal processes to torture people in England unless the monarch...
While there were lots of violent aspects of the culture and lots of horrible executions that seemed torturous because they could last for days, there was very little actual torture even then. And torture in England in this specified definition actually ended in 1640. There were the most tortures under...