Breaking Boundaries: Politics and Play in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

ISBN-10: 1859283950
ISBN-13: 9781859283950
Series: Breaking Boundaries
Pages: 160
Language: English
Published: 1998
Publisher: Ashgate
Author: Molly Smith

Description

The period 1585-1649 was rich in innovative drama which challenged the boundaries between social, political and cultural activities of various kinds. In this book, Molly Smith examines ways in which texts by Renaissance authors reflect, question and influence their society's ideological concerns. In the drama of Kyd, Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Middleton, Massinger and Ford, she identifies the simultaneously serious and playful appropriation of popular cultural practices, an appropriation which is expertly reversed by authorities in the political drama of Charles I's public trial and execution in 1649. This compelling interpretation of Renaissance drama will prove of value to students of literature and social history.