"The Renaissance saw a dramatic explosion of such force that, four hundred years later, its plays are still amongst the most frequently performed and studied we have. This anthology offers a full introduction to Renaissance theatre in its historical and political context, along with newly edited and comprehensively annotated texts of the following plays: The Spanish Tragedy (Thomas Kyd); Arden of Faversham (Anon.); Edward II (Christopher Marlowe); A Woman Killed with Kindness (Thomas Heywood); The Tragedy of Mariam (Elizabeth Cary); The Masque of Blackness (Ben Jonson); The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Francis Beaumont); Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (Ben Jonson); The Roaring Girl (Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker); The Changeling (Thomas Middleton and William Rowley); and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (John Ford).".

"Each play is prefaced by an introductory headnote discussing the thematic focus of the play and its textual history, and is cross-referenced to other plays of the period that relate thematically and generically."--BOOK JACKET.

The Routledge Anthology of Early Modern Drama is the first new collection of the drama of Shakespeare’s contemporaries in over a century. This volume comprises seventeen accessible, thoroughly glossed, modernized play-texts, intermingling a wide range of unfamiliar works—including the anonymous Look About You, Massinger’s The Picture, Heminge’s The Fatal Contract, Heywood’s The Four Prentices of London, and Greene’s James IV—with more familiar works such as Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, and Middleton’s Women Beware Women. Each play is edited by a different leading scholar in the field of early modern studies, bringing specific expertise and context to the chosen play-text. With an unprecedented variety of plays, and critical introductions that focus on the diversity and strangeness of different early modern approaches to the artistic and commercial enterprise of play-making, The Routledge Anthology of Early Modern Drama will offer vital new perspectives on early modern drama for scholars, students, and performers alike.

RENAISSANCE DRAMA Experience the best and most noteworthy works of Renaissance drama This Third Edition of Renaissance Drama: An Anthology of Plays and Entertainments is the latest installment of a groundbreaking collection of non-Shakespearean Renaissance drama. Covering not only the popular drama of the period, Renaissance Drama includes masques, Lord Mayor shows, royal performances, and the popular mystery plays of the time. The selections fairly represent the variety and quality of Renaissance drama and they include works of scholarly and literary interest. Each work included in this edition comes with an insightful and illuminating introduction that places the piece in its historical and cultural context, with accompanying text explaining the significance of each piece and the ways in which it interacts with other works. New to this edition are: The famous entertainment for Elizabeth at Kenilworth George Peele’s remarkably inventive The Old Wives’ Tale The oft-forgotten history of Thomas of Woodstock, predecessor to Shakespeare’s Richard II John Lyly’s Gallathea, a work which explores gender and love, written for the Children’s Company at Saint Paul’s Ben Johnson’s Volpone and the controversial Epicoene Perfect for scholars, teachers, and readers of the English Renaissance, Renaissance Drama: An Anthology of Plays and Entertainments belongs on the bookshelves of anyone with even a passing interest in the drama of its time.

New Historicism has been one of the major developments in literary theory over the last decade, both in the USA and Europe. In this book, Wilson and Dutton examine the theories behind New Historicism and its celebrated impact in practice on Renaissance Drama, providing an important collection both for students of the genre and of literary theory.

How did English dramatists portray the neighboring domain of France and its history in their plays? The study examines a selection of Shakespearean and other history plays, the French tragedies of George Chapman, Christopher Marlowe's revealing historical tragedy The Massacre at Paris, and several literary and nonliterary historical texts. The result is a unique and timely contribution to our understanding of how cultural differences influenced the historical perspectives of English dramatists as well as how Renaissance plays shaped, and were shaped by, their historical material. Drawing on the insights of cultural studies, historiography, and ethnography, this study re-examines the historical representation of a neglected yet influential part of early modern Europe and the paradoxical relationship between English writers and their French subject matter. Although information about France and French history was becoming increasingly available in England at the end of the sixteenth century, for English writers France remained a distant land, its history and people misunderstood and misrepresented.