Methods and Practice of Elizabethan Swordplay

by Craig Turner and Tony Soper

Book Overview

Featuring period drawings and prints of swordplay, this book examines and compares the only three existing Elizabethan fencing manuals written in English before 1600: Giacomo Di Grassi's His True Arte of Defense (1594), Vincentio Saviolo's His Practice in Two Bookes (1595), and George Silver's Paradoxes of Defence and Bref Instructions Upon my Paradoxes of Defence (1599).

More than a technical manual on swordplay, this...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809315629
• ISBN13: 9780809315628
• Release Date: June 1990
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 168 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

...splendid and absorbing book

"I feel honored to be asked to comment on this splendid and absorbing book. [It] is an invaluable reference book for fight directors and all those involved in staging exhibitions of historical swordplay. I recommend it wholeheartedly'--Patrick Crean, Fight Master of the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival

A great book for stage combatants focusing on Shakespeare.

A great book for stage combatants focusing on the Shakespearean era. From Stage Combat 101 by Glen Kyle: www.armourarchive.com/choreosword.html

An excellent book describing three masters...

An excellent book describing three masters: Giacomo DiGrassi, Vincentio Saviolo; and George Silver. Showing both their methods and techniques as well as the differences between them. From Sovereign Rose, Companie of Lawe: home.earthlink.net/~sirgydion/books.html

Worth reading at least twice if you choreograph fights...

Detailed and scholarly work about which the theorists can argue. Worth reading at least twice if you choreograph fights regularly for someone who is interested in "realistic" portrayal. From The Ring of Steel: www.deathstar.org/groups/ros/library.html

"makes a difference in performance"

Featuring period drawings and prints of swordplay, this book examines and compares, the only three existing Elizabethan fencing manuals written in English before 1600: Giacomo Di Grassi's His True Arte of Defense (1594), Vincentio Saviolo's His Practice in Two Bookes (1595), and George Silver's Paradoxes of Defence and Bref Instructions Upon my Paradoxes of Defence (1599). More than a technical manual on swordplay, this book explores the influence of a new form of violence introduced into Elizabethan culture by the invention of the rapier. The authors examine the rapier's influence on the various social classes, the clash between the traditional English fencing masters and those embracing the new style, the growing concern with unregulated dueling, and the frequent references to rapier play in the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. As producer Joseph Papp notes in his Foreword, this is a book that "makes a difference in performance"