ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book describes the transformative power of the performative and in particular on its role in joining notions of the nation and forms of collective identity. It focuses on the cross-fertilization of these concepts and forms of collective identity; on how ideas of community were shaped by notions of the nation, and on how the ideas themselves gave shape to the concept of the nation. The book examines what role drama and theatre played in both the negotiation of the nation and in the formation of collective identity. It explains the early modern public theatre as a social laboratory of sorts, as a locus in which diverse attitudes towards the nation materialized and in which a number of alternative role models were quite literally played out against each other. The book discusses the specific concepts and discourses of the nation.
