Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama
About the Book Series
This series presents original research on theatre histories and performance histories; the time period covered is from about 1500 to the early 18th century. Studies in which women's activities are a central feature of discussion are especially of interest; this may include women as financial or technical support (patrons, musicians, dancers, seamstresses, wig-makers) or house support staff (e.g., gatherers), rather than performance per se. We also welcome critiques of early modern drama that take into account the production values of the plays and rely on period records of performance.
Disguise on the Early Modern English Stage
1st Edition
By Peter Hyland
November 10, 2016
Disguise devices figure in many early modern English plays, and an examination of them clearly affords an important reflection on the growth of early theatre as well as on important aspects of the developing nation. In this study Peter Hyland considers a range of practical issues related to the ...
Negotiating Shakespeare's Language in Romeo and Juliet: Reading Strategies from Criticism, Editing and the Theatre
1st Edition
By Lynette Hunter, Peter Lichtenfels
November 10, 2016
Through exciting and unconventional approaches, including critical/historical, printing/publishing and performance studies, this study mines Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to produce new insights into the early modern family, the individual, and society in the context of early modern capitalism. ...
Plotting Early Modern London: New Essays on Jacobean City Comedy
1st Edition
By Dieter Mehl, Angela Stock
November 10, 2016
With the publication of Brian Gibbons's Jacobean City Comedy thirty-five years ago, the urban satires by Ben Jonson, John Marston and Thomas Middleton attained their 'official status as a Renaissance subgenre' that was distinct, by its farcical humour and ironic tone, from 'citizen comedy' or '...
Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater
1st Edition
Edited
By Robert Henke, Eric Nicholson
November 10, 2016
Emphasizing a performative and stage-centered approach, this book considers early modern European theater as an international phenomenon. Early modern theater was remarkable both in the ways that it represented material and symbolic exchanges across political, linguistic, and cultural borders (both...
Female Mourning and Tragedy in Medieval and Renaissance English Drama: From the Raising of Lazarus to King Lear
1st Edition
By Katharine Goodland
November 09, 2016
Grieving women in early modern English drama, this study argues, recall not only those of Classical tragedy, but also, and more significantly, the lamenting women of medieval English drama, especially the Virgin Mary. Looking at the plays of Shakespeare, Kyd, and Webster, this book presents a ...
Masks and Masking in Medieval and Early Tudor England
1st Edition
By Meg Twycross, Sarah Carpenter
November 03, 2016
Drawing on broad research, this study explores the different social and theatrical masking activities in England during the Middle Ages and the early 16th century. The authors present a coherent explanation of the many functions of masking, emphasizing the important links among festive practice, ...
Shakespeare and the Cultures of Performance
1st Edition
Edited
By Paul Yachnin, Patricia Badir
October 19, 2016
Theatrical performance, suggest the contributors to this volume, can be an unpredictable, individual experience as well as a communal, institutional or cultural event. The essays collected here use the tools of theatre history in their investigation into the phenomenology of the performance ...
Crowd and Rumour in Shakespeare
1st Edition
By Kai Wiegandt
October 10, 2016
In this study, the author offers new interpretations of Shakespeare's works in the context of two major contemporary notions of collectivity: the crowd and rumour. The plays illustrate that rumour and crowd are mutually dependent; they also betray a fascination with the fact that crowd and rumour ...
Sex and Satiric Tragedy in Early Modern England: Penetrating Wit
1st Edition
By Gabriel A. Rieger
September 30, 2016
Drawing upon recent scholarship in Renaissance studies regarding notions of the body, political, physical and social, this study examines how the satiric tragedians of the English Renaissance employ the languages of sex - including sexual slander, titillation, insinuation and obscenity - in the ...
Emulation on the Shakespearean Stage
1st Edition
By Vernon Guy Dickson
August 26, 2016
The English Renaissance has long been considered a period with a particular focus on imitation; however, much related scholarship has misunderstood or simply marginalized the significance of emulative practices and theories in the period. This work uses the interactions of a range of English ...
Laughing and Weeping in Early Modern Theatres
1st Edition
By Matthew Steggle
August 26, 2016
Did Shakespeare's original audiences weep? Equally, while it seems obvious that they must have laughed at plays performed in early modern theatres, can we say anything about what their laughter sounded like, about when it occurred, and about how, culturally, it was interpreted? Related to both of ...
Martyrs and Players in Early Modern England: Tragedy, Religion and Violence on Stage
1st Edition
By David K. Anderson
August 26, 2016
Focusing on Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Webster and John Milton, Martyrs and Players in Early Modern England argues that the English tragedians reflected an unease within the culture to acts of religious violence. David Anderson explores a link between the unstable emotional ...