English Renaissance Drama

This guide provides students with the historical, literary andtheatrical contexts they need to make sense of English Renaissancedrama. The book considers the London theatrical culture which tookshape in the 1570s and came to an end in 1642, emphasising playsthat can be read in modern editions and seen in modern productions.Shakespeare s plays appear as a vital but not dominatingcomponent of this repertoire.

The opening section reviews the historical conditions in whichRenaissance plays were written and performed, tracing the opposinginfluences of patronage and the market, the Court and the City. Thenext section surveys the various languages out of which plays weremade, showing how discourses such as history, satire or love weretaken up and dramatized. Then a series of short biographiesdescribes the lives of the best–known playwrights of the period. Afourth section provides analyses of over twenty specific scripts,showing what makes them interesting and what critical questionsthey provoke. Finally, the author links ideological concerns withdramatic practice by considering things that are typically enactedon the early modern stage, such as cuckolding, flattering,swaggering, going mad, and rising from the dead.

Introduction.

Timeline.

The Set–Up.

The Moment.

Irreligious Drama.

Courtiers and Capitalists.

Actors and Writers.

The Stage.

Background Voices.

Allegory.

Ceremony.

Drama.

Festivity.

History.

Love.

Medicine.

Rhetoric.

Romance.

Satire.

The Writers.

Francis Beaumont (1584/5 1616).

Richard Brome (c. 1590 1652).

George Chapman (1559 1634).

Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 1632).

John Fletcher (1579 1625).

John Ford (1586 ?1650).

Robert Greene (1558 1592).

Thomas Heywood (c. 1573 1641).

Ben Jonson (1572 1637).

Thomas Kyd (1558 1594).

Christopher Marlowe (1564 1593).

John Marston (1576 1634).

Philip Massinger (1583 1640).

Thomas Middleton (1580 1627).

Anthony Munday (1560 1633).

George Peele (1556 1596).

William Rowley (d. 1626).

William Shakespeare (1564 1616).

James Shirley (1596 1666).

Cyril Tourneur (d. 1626).

John Webster (c. 1579 c. 1630).

Key Plays.

Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy.

Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great.

Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus.

William Shakespeare, Richard II .

Ben Jonson, Every Man In His Humour .

Thomas Dekker, The Shoemakers Holiday .

William Shakespeare, Hamlet.

John Marston, The Dutch Courtesan.

William Shakespeare, King Lear.

The Revenger s Tragedy .

Ben Jonson, Volpone, or, The Fox .

Francis Beaumont, The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, The Maid sTragedy.

Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, The Roaring Girl.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest .

Thomas Middleton, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.

Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair.

John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi.

Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, The Changeling.

Philip Massinger, The Roman Actor .

Thomas Heywood, The Fair Maid of the West.

John Ford, Tis Pity She s a Whore.

Richard Brome, A Jovial Crew.

Actions That A Man Might Play.

Attending.

Being a Woman.

Conjuring.

Cuckolding.

Dressing Up.

Feigning.

Flattering.

Going Mad.

Inheriting.

Plotting.

Rising from the Dead.

Seducing.

Swaggering.

Bibliography.

Index

Peter Womack is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of East Anglia. He is the co–author of English Drama: A Cultural History (Blackwell Publishing, 1996), and the author of Improvement and Romance: Constructing the Myth of the Highlands (1989) and Ben Jonson (Blackwell Publishing, 1986).

"...Womack offers insightful critical comments on EnglishRenaissance playwrights, some major plays, and a variety ofcontextual topics...Womack is an astute critic."

CHOICE

"Remarkably comprehensive a very fine introduction forthe non–specialist."

Touchstone