The Cambridge Introduction to Early Modern Drama, 1576-1642

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Engaging and stimulating, this Introduction provides a fresh vista of the early modern theatrical landscape. Chapters are arranged according to key genres (tragedy, revenge, satire, history play, pastoral and city comedy), punctuated by a series of focused case studies on topics ranging from repertoire to performance style, political events to the physical body of the actor, and from plays in print to the space of the playhouse. Julie Sanders encourages readers to engage with particular dramatic moments, such as opening scenes, skulls on stage or the conventions of disguise, and to apply the materials and methods contained in the book in inventive ways. A timeline and frequent cross-references provide continuity. Always alert to the possibilities of performance, Sanders reveals the remarkable story of early modern drama not through individual writers, but through repertoires and company practices, helping to relocate and re-imagine canonical plays and playwrights.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface. An outline of approaches taken
• Introduction: brick, lime, sand, plaster over lath, and 'new oaken boards': the early modern playhouse
• Case study A Richard III at the Globe
• Case study B An outdoor theatre repertoire: the Rose on Bankside
• 1 Tragedy
• Case study C Opening scenes
• Case study D Staging violence and the space of the stage
• 2 Revenge drama
• Case study E 'Here in the friars': the second Blackfriars indoor playhouse
• Case study F The social life of things: skulls on the stage
• 3 Histories
• Case study G Title pages and plays in print
• 4 Comedy, pastoral and romantic
• Case study H The boy actor: body, costume, and disguise
• 5 City comedies
• Case study I The dramaturgy of scenes
• Case study J Collaborative writing or the literary workshop
• 6 Satire
• Case study K Topical theatre and 1605-6
• Case study L 'Little eyases': the children's companies and repertoire
• 7 Tragicomedy
• Case study M The visual rhetoric of dumb show
• Conclusion: The wind and the rain: the wider landscape of early modern performance
• Chronology
• Bibliography

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Sanders (Univ. of Nottingham, UK) attempts the difficult feat of presenting--in one volume--an overview of early modern drama, along with scholarly approaches to it and its social and cultural history. She mostly succeeds, and the fact that she is not entirely successful is due more to the enormity of the task than to her skill and scholarship. Sanders makes some interesting and worthwhile choices-using genre as an organizing principle instead of chronology, for example, and using brief case studies to look at topics like playing space and props. It is perhaps inevitable that a discussion would end just as a topic gets interesting. As just one example, she devotes a mere four pages to women in revenge tragedies and so is forced to make sweeping statements even about the one play she chooses as her focus. Another problem is that the photographs are few and uninspired, often not conveying what their captions say they do. The writing is lively and approachable, and both the chronology and bibliography are excellent. This would be a good resource for a mid-level class on early modern theater, but this reviewer is left wishing Cambridge had given Sanders 100 more pages, or a smaller task. --Annalisa Castaldo, Widener University