John D. Cox

A new history of early English drama

Introduction: Demanding HistoryWorld Pictures, Modern Periods, and the Early Stage, by Margreta de GraziaThe English Church as Theatrical Space, by John M. Wasson,A Commonty a Christmas gambold or a tumbling trick: Household Theater, by Suzanne WestfallThe Universities: Early Staging in Cambridge, by Alan H. NelsonEarly Staging in Oxford, by John R. Elliott, Jr.Streets and Markets, by Anne HigginsThe Theaters, by John OrrellRowme of its Own: Printed Drama in Early Libraries, by Heidi Brayman HackelTheater and Religious Culture, by Paul Whitfield WhiteWonderful Spectacles: Theater and Civic Culture, by Gordon Kipling,The Theater and Domestic Culture, by Diana E. HendersonEntertainments at Court, by Graham ParryThe Theater and Literary Culture, by Barbara A. MowatTheater and Popular Culture, by Michael D. BristolTouring, by Peter H. GreenfieldCloathes worth all the rest: Costumes and Properties, by Jean MacIntyre and Garret P.J. EppCensorship, by Richard DuttonAudiences: Investigation, Interpretation, Invention, by Ann Jennalie CookRogues and Rhetoricians: Acting Styles in Early English Drama, by Peter ThomsonPersonnel and Professionalization, by W.R. StreitbergerPlaywriting: Authorship and Collaboration, by Jeffrey MastenThe Publication of Playbooks, by Peter W. M. BlaneyPatronage and the Economics of Theater, by Kathleen E. McLuskie and Felicity DunsworthThe Revision of Scripts, by Eric RasmussenThe Repertory, by Roslyn L. KnutsonPlays in Manuscript, by Paul Werstine

Shakespeare and the Dramaturgy of Power

Ranging over all the dramatic genres in the Shakespearean canon, this book focuses on plays where medieval drama most clearly illuminates Shakespeares treatment of political power and social privilege. Originally published in 1989. 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 Oxford Handbook of Holinshed's "Chronicles" ed. by Paulina Kewes, Ian W. Archer, and Felicity Heal (review)

meant the absence of Elizabeth Cary, mentioned only once in passing. Still, there is much here to excite students, who seem always hungry for details of playwrights’ lives, and also their professors, who may now stand a chance of convincing them that most early modern plays were written by people other than Shakespeare; that most early modern playwrights were also scriveners, lawyers, actors, translators, courtiers, or businessmen; and that theater is best understood as a communal process. As we gradually become more attentive to the participatory dimensions of theatrical practice, this fine collection offers a model for understanding how sensitivity to broader kinds of cultural collaboration can enrich our exploration of early modern drama.

Religion and Suffering in Macbeth

The tragic quality of Macbeth is inseparable from the plays imaginative eliciting of compassion on an explicitly Christian model. A. C. Bradley understood Shakespearean tragedy as inherent in character, and the historicists who reacted to Bradley reaffirmed the importance of religion, but only as historical background. New historicists are more interested in irony than tragedy, and they understand religion as a function of social or psychological relations. Though Macbeth is a murdering tyrant, the play constantly makes us aware of his intense suffering, which he himself identifies with his rejection of grace.

The World Must Be Peopled: Shakespeare's Comedies of Forgiveness (review)

This book treats just four plays as “comedies of forgiveness”: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado About Nothing, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Measure for Measure. This will surprise anyone who is familiar with R. G. Hunter’s term comedy of forgiveness, because Hunter coined it to describe all of Shakespeare’s plays that end with pardon asked and granted; so his list includes Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.1 Hunter, moreover, located the genre historically, identifying a tradition of medieval religious plays, such as the miracles of Our Lady, that end the same way. Friedman, in contrast, defines the “subgenre” he discusses in formal terms (22–26), without reference to generic precedents; he therefore distinguishes comedy of forgiveness from romance in a way that Hunter did not. Friedman’s principal difference from Hunter, however, is that Friedman identifies his method as “performance criticism” (15), and his first chapter is a theoretical exposition of what his method involves. Friedman distinguishes between a “diachronic approach,” involving analysis of a single production, and a “synchronic approach,” involving comparison of several productions of the same play (16), and identifies his own method as synchronic. His comparison of various productions is the principal strength of his book. Friedman shows, in careful and convincing ways, that performance choices are interpretive choices, and that patterns of interpretation have a life in the theater as much as in the study. In addition to careful analysis of performances, Friedman also offers good close readings of the plays’ poetry. Discussing Helena’s claim, in 1.1 of All’s Well, that “The hind that would be mated by the lion / Must die for love,” Friedman points to imagery in Much Ado and Two Gentlemen “whereby the Comic Hero is associated with a murderous, ravenous lion” (122). (He capitalizes “Comic Hero” because, in keeping with his formalist analysis, he sees characters as types in the comedies of forgiveness: the Vice, the Friend, the Authority, the Griselda, and the Shrew [23].) Again, with Measure for Measure, Friedman links the image of Angelo flagellating himself onstage with allusions in the play indicating that “the most common public punishment for crime [in Shakespeare’s Vienna] is whipping” (181). These are real strengths, and they make this book pleasurable and profitable to read. At the same time, however, some conceptual issues remain unclear. The most important of these relates to performance criticism. Friedman’s begins each chapter/section with a close reading of “the text,” focusing on passages that have been considered most problematic. Friedman acknowledges cases (such as Much Ado) where more than one

Shakespeare: The Histories (review)

“Envoy” by Merle Collins, again anchored by two poems about language-learning— both titled “The Word—in the Beginning”—which explore “what forces have helped [Collins, as a Caribbean writer] to name the bigger light, and the less” (266). The Tempest and its Travels has evidently been prepared with intelligence, imagination, and care. Introductory essays, headnotes, and even notes on illustrations are uniformly excellent, clear and adding value to what they comment upon. The book draws on a range of talents and insights for a diverse set of materials that nonetheless resonate with each other in intriguing ways, and these contributions are with little exception of high quality. The editors note that “all maps are partial” (xiii), confessing their absence of attention at least in this collection to film and science fiction, to Asian and Pacific perspectives, and to a number of noteworthy interpreters. That said, even those who know the play and its contexts well are likely to find something useful and new in this volume. I finished it energized by a renewed delight in the play.

The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents.

Providing a unique combination of well-written, up-to-date background information and intriguing selections from primary documents, The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare introduces students to the topics most important to the study of Shakespeare in their full historical and cultural context. This new edition contains many new documents, particularly by women and other marginalized voices from the early modern period. There is also a new chapter on Shakespeare in performance, which introduces students to the great variety of productions of Shakespeares works over the centuries.