Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher

Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher PDF Author: Philip J. Finkelpearl
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400860725
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The seventeenth-century English collaborative authors Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher were not only the most popular playwrights of their day but also literary figures highly esteemed by the great critics of the age, Jonson and Dryden. Concentrating on the passions of the royalty and high nobility in a courtly atmosphere, their dramas are now usually seen as epitomizing a decadent turn in theater at the end of the Jacobean period. Philip Finkelpearl sets out to change this view by revealing the subtle political challenges contained in the plays and by showing that they criticize rather than exemplify false values. The result is a wholly new conception of this pair of dramatists and of the entire question of the relationship between the Crown and the theater in their time. Finkelpearl presents new biographical material revealing that Beaumont and Fletcher had good and sufficient reasons to be critical of the court and the king, and he shows that their most important works--especially The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Philaster, A King and No King, and The Maid's Tragedy have such criticism as a central concern. Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher offers much information on the nature of the "public" and "private" theaters at which these plays were presented and on Jacobean censorship. The book is an impressive explanation of why Beaumont and Fletcher were a central force in the Age of Shakespeare. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher

Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher PDF Author: Philip J. Finkelpearl
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400860725
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Get Book

Book Description
The seventeenth-century English collaborative authors Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher were not only the most popular playwrights of their day but also literary figures highly esteemed by the great critics of the age, Jonson and Dryden. Concentrating on the passions of the royalty and high nobility in a courtly atmosphere, their dramas are now usually seen as epitomizing a decadent turn in theater at the end of the Jacobean period. Philip Finkelpearl sets out to change this view by revealing the subtle political challenges contained in the plays and by showing that they criticize rather than exemplify false values. The result is a wholly new conception of this pair of dramatists and of the entire question of the relationship between the Crown and the theater in their time. Finkelpearl presents new biographical material revealing that Beaumont and Fletcher had good and sufficient reasons to be critical of the court and the king, and he shows that their most important works--especially The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Philaster, A King and No King, and The Maid's Tragedy have such criticism as a central concern. Court and Country Politics in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher offers much information on the nature of the "public" and "private" theaters at which these plays were presented and on Jacobean censorship. The book is an impressive explanation of why Beaumont and Fletcher were a central force in the Age of Shakespeare. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Politics of Tragicomedy

The Politics of Tragicomedy PDF Author: Gordon McMullan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000350088
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
The Politics of Tragicomedy: Shakespeare and After offers a series of sophisticated and powerful readings of tragicomedy from Shakespeare’s late plays to the drama of the Interregnum. Rejecting both the customary chronological span bounded by the years 1603-42 (which presumes dramatic activity stopped with the closing of the theatres) and the negative critical attitudes that have dogged the study of tragicomedy, the essays in this collection examine a series of issues central to the possibility of a politics for the genre. Individual essays offer important contributions to continuing debates over the role of the drama in the years preceding the Civil War, the colonial contexts of The Tempest, the political character of Jonson’s late plays, and the agency of women as public and theatre actors. The introduction presents a strong challenge to previous definitions of tragicomedy in the English context, and the collection as a whole is characterized by its rejection of absolutist strategies for reading tragicomedy. This collection will prove essential reading for all with an interest in the politics of Renaissance drama; for specialists in the work of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson; for those interested in genre and dramatic forms; and for historians of early Stuart England.

The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher

The Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher PDF Author: Sandra Clark
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131786669X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
This is an analysis of sexual themes in the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, both in the context of the Jacobean theatre and in the light of modern readings of sexuality and gender during the English Renaissance. Sandra Clark challenges commonly-held perceptions of Beaumont and Fletcher's work. The book is intended for undergraduate and graduate courses on Renaissance literature, Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, tragicomedy, gender and genre in the Renaissance.

Routledge Library Editions: Study of Shakespeare

Routledge Library Editions: Study of Shakespeare PDF Author: Various
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000519384
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 3794

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Book Description
This 14-volume set contains titles originally published between 1926 and 1992. An eclectic mix, this collection examines Shakespeare’s work from a number of different perspectives, looking at history, language, performance and more it includes references to many of his plays as well as his sonnets.

Theatre Closure and the Paradoxical Rise of English Renaissance Drama in the Civil Wars

Theatre Closure and the Paradoxical Rise of English Renaissance Drama in the Civil Wars PDF Author: Heidi Craig
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009224042
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Focusing on the production and reception of drama during the theatre closures of 1642 to 1660, Heidi Craig shows how the 'death' of contemporary theatre in fact gave birth to English Renaissance drama as a critical field. While the prohibition on playing in many respects killed the English stage, drama thrived in print, with stationers publishing unprecedented numbers of previously unprinted professional plays, vaunting playbooks' ties to the receding theatrical past. Marketed in terms of novelty and nostalgia, plays unprinted before 1642 gained new life. Stationers also anatomized the whole corpus of English drama, printing the first anthologies and comprehensive catalogues of drama. Craig captures this crucial turning-point in English theatre history with chapters on royalist nostalgia, clandestine theatrical revivals, dramatic compendia, and the mysteriously small number of Shakespeare editions issued during the period, as well as a new incisive reading of Beaumont and Fletcher's A King and No King.

A Companion to Shakespeare's Works, Volumr IV

A Companion to Shakespeare's Works, Volumr IV PDF Author: Richard Dutton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470997303
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
This four-volume Companion to Shakespeare's Works, compiled as a single entity, offers a uniquely comprehensive snapshot of current Shakespeare criticism. Brings together new essays from a mixture of younger and more established scholars from around the world - Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Examines each of Shakespeare’s plays and major poems, using all the resources of contemporary criticism, from performance studies to feminist, historicist, and textual analysis. Volumes are organized in relation to generic categories: namely the histories, the tragedies, the romantic comedies, and the late plays, problem plays and poems. Each volume contains individual essays on all texts in the relevant category, as well as more general essays looking at critical issues and approaches more widely relevant to the genre. Offers a provocative roadmap to Shakespeare studies at the dawning of the twenty-first century. This companion to Shakespeare’s poems, problem comedies and late plays contains original essays on Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, All's Well That Ends Well, "Venus and Adonis", "The Rape of Lucrece", and "The Sonnets", as well as Pericles, The Winter's Tale, Cymbeline, The Tempest, and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England

Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England PDF Author: J. Leeds Barroll
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838635704
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England is an international volume published every year in hardcover, containing essays and studies as well as book reviews of the many significant books and essays dealing with the cultural history of medieval and early modern England as expressed by and realized in its drama exclusive of Shakespeare.

The Shakespeare Company, 1594-1642

The Shakespeare Company, 1594-1642 PDF Author: Andrew Gurr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521807302
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
This is the first complete history of the theater company in which Shakespeare acted and which staged all his plays. Created in 1594, the company became the King's Men in 1603 and ran for forty-eight years up to the closure of 1642. Andrew Gurr provides a study of the company's activities, explores its social role in its time and examines its repertoire of plays. This comprehensive illustrated history will be an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to know more about the conditions under which Shakespeare and his successors worked.

Teaching Shakespeare and Early Modern Dramatists

Teaching Shakespeare and Early Modern Dramatists PDF Author: A. Hiscock
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230593208
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
This collection offers practical suggestions for the integration of non-Shakespearean drama into the teaching of Shakespeare. It shows both the ways in which Shakespearean drama is typical of its period and of the ways in which it is distinctive, by looking at Shakespeare and other writers who influenced and developed the genres in which he worked.

A King and No King

A King and No King PDF Author: Francis Beaumont
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719058639
Category : Kings and rulers
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
A popular and influential play from its first performance in 1611 until the early eighteenth century, 'A King and No King' helped establish tragicomedy as the seventeenth century's favoured dramatic genre, and Beaumont and Fletcher as leading playwrights of the day.Accompanying this newly edited text, an introduction explores the play's sources, both literary and dramatic, and offers a thorough reconsideration of its relation to its social and political context, and contemporary issues of royal absolutism, good governance, and the political role of the aristocracy. In addition, the introduction provides the fullest available account of 'A King and No King''s stage history, tracing the shifts in cultural mores that eroded its popularity and ultimately consigned it to the study rather than the stage. This fully annotated edition encourages an appreciation of the play's very real virtues and will appeal to theatre professionals as well as to students of Renaissance drama.