This expansive, inter-disciplinary guide to Renaissance plays and the world they played to gives readers a colorful overview of England's great dramatic age.

In its pages, today's best Renaissance scholars chart the cross-currents of belief and daily experience that illuminate the meaning of works by Marlowe, Jonson, Middleton or Webster, as it has changed over time, place and audience. They explain why the plays do or say what they do, and raise provocative possibilities of what the plays might have said to Tudor and Stuart playgoers by discussing values, attitudes, and the material conditions of performance, along with the lives and particular ideas of individual playwrights.

Arthur F. Kinney is Copeland Professor of Literary History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Director of the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies. He is the editor of A Companion to Renaissance Drama (Blackwell, 2002) and of the journal English Literary Renaissance. His other recent publications include Lies like Truth: Shakespeare, Macbeth, and the Cultural Moment (2001) and Shakespeare by Stages (Blackwell, 2002).

List of Illustrations xi

Notes on Contributors xii

Acknowledgments xviii

Introduction: The Dramatic World of the Renaissance 1
Arthur F. Kinney

PART ONE The Drama's World 11

1 The Politics of Renaissance England 13
Norman Jones

2 Political Thought and the Theater, 1580-1630 25
Annabel Patterson

3 Religious Persuasions, c.1580-c.1620 40
Lori Anne Ferrell

4 Social Discourse and the Changing Economy 50
Lee Beier

5 London and Westminster 68
Ian W. Archer

6 Vagrancy 83
William C. Carroll

7 Family and Household 93
Martin Ingram

8 Travel and Trade 109
William H. Sherman

9 Everyday Custom and Popular Culture 121
Michael Bristol

10 Magic and Witchcraft 135
Deborah Willis

PART TWO The World of Drama 145

11 Playhouses 147
Herbert Berry

12 The Transmission of an English Renaissance Play-Text 163
Grace Ioppolo

13 Playing Companies and Repertory 180
Roslyn L. Knutson

14 Must the Devil Appear?: Audiences, Actors, Stage Business 193
S. P. Cerasano

15 "The Actors are Come Hither": Traveling Companies 212
Peter H. Greenfield

16 Jurisdiction of Theater and Censorship 223
Richard Dutton

PART THREE Kinds of Drama 237

17 Medieval and Reformation Roots 239
Raphael Falco

18 The Academic Drama 257
Robert S. Knapp

19 "What Revels are in Hand?": Performances in the Great Households 266
Suzanne Westfall

20 Progresses and Court Entertainments 281
R. Malcolm Smuts

21 Civic Drama 294
Lawrence Manley

22 Boy Companies and Private Theaters 314
Michael Shapiro

23 Revenge Tragedy 326
Eugene D. Hill

24 Staging the Malcontent in Early Modern England 336
Mark Thornton Burnett

25 City Comedy 353
John A. Twyning

26 Domestic Tragedy: Private Life on the Public Stage 367
Lena Cowen Orlin

27 Romance and Tragicomedy 384
Maurice Hunt

28 Gendering the Stage 399
Alison Findlay

29 Closet Drama
Marta Straznicky 416

PART FOUR Dramatists 431

30 Continental Influences 433
Lawrence F. Rhu

31 Christopher Marlowe 446
Emily C. Bartels

32 Ben Jonson 464
W. David Kay

33 Sidney, Cary, Wroth 482
Margaret Ferguson

34 Thomas Middleton 507
John Jowett

35 Beaumont and Fletcher 524
Lee Bliss

36 Collaboration 540
Philip C. McGuire

37 John Webster 553
Elli Abraham Shellist

38 John Ford 567
Mario DiGangi

Index 584