Spectacular Imaginings: Renaissance and Restoration Theatre (Q3039)
(Third Year Course)
Spring Semester 2014
Tutor: Dr Margaret Healy, Arts B233 e-mail: m.j.healy@sussex.ac.uk
Margaret’s Office Hours: No appointment needed.
Modes of teaching: one compulsory 2 hour seminar per week. Each course participant will be
asked to give at least one short presentation.
This module explores Renaissance and Restoration drama in its original historical, sociocultural and aesthetic contexts but it also reflects upon why plays from this era are so
frequently and successfully re-produced for the modern stage and screen. It examines how
political events such as the build-up to the English civil wars, the revolution itself, and then
the Restoration of the monarchy impacted on the late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century stage
and explores the role of genre, acting styles and the actor’s body in mediating topical issues.
Among the themes explored are unruly sexualities (incest, adultery, rape); violence and
eloquence; political pornography; London and city commerce; domestic tragedy and court
decadence and country pastimes. It asks whether the theatre merely reproduced the authority
of the monarch who partly controlled it, or subtly undermined it. Did the transvestite acting
tradition simply reflect a culture that was vehemently patriarchal or did it unsettle gender
categories? Were class and racial distinctions and prejudices reinforced or undermined by the
stage? What were the relations among sex, family and patriarchal politics? A selection of
comedies, tragedies and tragi-comedies from among the following playwrights will be
studied: Jonson, Heywood, Marlowe, Shakespeare, John Ford, Massinger, Webster,
Middleton, Dekker, Beaumont, Fletcher, Cary, Wycherley, Behn, Etherege, and Congreve.
Learning outcomes and Assessment (Look on Sussex Direct)
I would like to encourage all students to submit a practise essay of 1500 words to me just
prior to, or just after, the mid Semester reading week. This essay will not be given a grade but
it will be a focus point for feedback about your dissertation project.
One 6000 word dissertation (the word count does not include footnotes and bibliography)
due in the Summer term (find exact date on Sussex Direct) should demonstrate: a) the
student’s ability to research widely and acquire expertise in an area of particular
interest; b) an accurate understanding of the interplay of drama and performance with the
politico-social contexts of early modern England; c) an ability to analyse critically the ways in
which the drama responded to commercial demands and shifts in aesthetic ‘taste’; d) the
ability to participate in current critical debates while constructing and sustaining a coherent
argument; e) the skills requisite to organising complex material into an extended piece of
written work which is accurately referenced and well presented.
On how to write a dissertation, see the on-line School of English handbook.
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Questions: Did the theatre reproduce the authority of a monarchy and an aristocracy who
controlled it, or did it subtly undermine it? Did the transvestite acting tradition reflect a
culture that was vehemently patriarchal or did it unsettle gender categories? Are gender, class
and race distinctions reinforced in the theatre or are they undermined? What might have been
the effect of miming greatness on the stage? How did the actor’s body and speeches inscribe
politics? What are the relations among sex, marriage, family and patriarchal politics? What
part do genre (comedy, tragedy, romance, tragi-comedy) and dramatic writing and acting
styles (which can be naturalistic, emblematic, metadramatic, metapoetic, etc.) play in all this?
Essential Purchases: (these 3 volumes provide all the plays studied on this course, plus lots
of useful historical, cultural and staging information)
1. English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology, eds., Engle, Maus, Rasmussen
(W.W.Norton @ Company, 2002).
2. AND Shakespeare, Oxford Compact., or., Complete Works: Student Edition (Arden
Shakespeare) or The Norton Shakespeare . You can purchase individual Arden editions of
the plays if you prefer (the New Cambridge Cymbeline ed. Martin Butler is the best edition of
that play).
3. Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Comedy, selected and edited by Scott McMillin, A
Norton Critical Edition, Second Edition (W.W.Norton @ Company, 1997). Please note,
you must buy the second edition which includes Aphra Behn’s The Rover; I suggest you
purchase the paperback edition.
Highly Recommended essay collections for purchase:
David Scott Kastan and Peter Stallybrass, Staging the Renaissance: Reinterpretations of
Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Routledge, 1991).
Early Modern English Drama: A Critical Companion, eds, Sullivan, Cheney, Hadfield
(OUP, 2006).
Useful aids: Many of these books specifically refer to Shakespearean drama but they provide
helpful contexts for studying Renaissance theatre more generally.
Shakespeare: An Oxford Guide, eds., Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin (OUP, 2003). A
New History of Early English Drama, eds. Cox and Kastan (Columbia, 1997); Richard
Dutton, Mastering the Revels: the regulation and censorship of English renaissance drama
(Macmillan, 1991).Simon Palfrey, Doing Shakespeare (Arden, Thomson Learning, 2005):
very cogent chapters on Shakespeare’s language and characters; Shakespeare in Parts (OUP,
2007). Tiffany Stern, Making Shakespeare: from stage to page (Routledge, 2005). Douglas
Brooks, From Playhouse to Printing house (CUP, 2000); Jeremy Lopez, Theatrical
Convention and Audience Response in Early Modern Drama (CUP, 2007); Martin White,
Renaissance drama in action: an introduction to aspects of theatre practice and performance
(Routledge, 1998). The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre (CUP, 2013);
A Companion to Restoration Drama, ed Susan Owen (Blackwell).
Other Useful Aids: A. Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London (1987). Reading
Shakespeare’s Dramatic Language: A Guide (Arden Shakespeare; Thomson Learning, 2001).
Frank Kermode, Shakespeare’s Language (Penguin). Shakespeare: an Anthology of Criticism
and Theory 1945-2000, ed., Russ McDonald (Blackwell, 2004). On changes in critical
approaches to Shakespeare and Renaissance drama since the 1980s see T. Hawkes,
Introduction, Alternative Shakespeares 2. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare
Studies; A Companion to Shakespeare, ed. D. Kastan (Blackwell, 1999); Shakespeare Texts
and Contexts, ed., K. Ryan (Palgrave, 2000); G. Taylor, Reinventing Shakespeare: a cultural
history from the restoration to the present (1989); The Palgrave New Casebooks series:
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Shakespeare on Film; Shakespeare in Performance; Shakespeare’s History Plays;
Shakespeare’s Romances; Shakespeare’s Tragedies. On Shakespeare and film see
Shakespeare and the Moving Image : the plays on film and television eds Anthony Davies and
Stanley Wells (1994); Shakespeare, the Movie : popularizing the plays on film, TV and video,
eds Lynda E. Boose and Richard Burt (1997). World-wide Shakespeares: local
appropriations in film and performance, ed., Sonia Massia (Routledge, 2005). Some
Interesting topics: Charles Whitney, Early Responses to Renaissance Drama (CUP) Short
PF5470; J.H.Long, Music in Renaissance Drama (Univ. of Kentucky), PF5470Lon; Alison
Findlay, A Feminist Perspective on Renaissance Drama (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999),
PF5470Fin; F.Karim-Cooper, Cosmetics in Shakespearean and Renaissance Drama (EUP,
2006), PF5470Kar; Mary Beth Rose, Renaissance Drama as Cultural History: essays from
the drama 1977-87 (Northwestern UP, 1990) PN1785Ren; A.Findlay, Illegitimate Power:
Bastards in Renaissance Drama (Manchester UP, 1994) PF5470Fin; Lorna Hutson, The
Invention of Suspicion: Law and Mimesis in Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama (OUP,
2007).
Do Use These: Important Journals with annual bibliographies: Shakespeare Quarterly
(available on line via library electronic resources), Renaissance Studies, and English
Literary Renaissance. Sources: G. Bullough, The Narrative and Dramatic Sources of
Shakespeare, 8 vols. (1957-75). Wonderful website full of accurate information:
Luminarium
IMPORTANT: Investigate the electronic library at Sussex; you will find many up to the
minute essays on these plays which you can print out—invaluable for researching your
dissertation.
1. Introduction: Spectacular Transgressions
Essential Reading:
Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta (1589)
David Scott Kastan and Peter Stallybrass, ‘Introduction’, Staging the Renaissance:
Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (Routledge, 1991).
Stephen J. Greenblatt, ‘The Will to Absolute Play’ in Staging the Renaissance.
Further reading:
Doctor Faustus (‘A’ text: 1589-92)
Jonathan Dollimore, Ch.1, ‘Contexts’, Radical Tragedy (1984)
Ch. 6, ‘Subversion through Transgression’ in Radical Tragedy; it’s also in Kastan and
Stallybrass, Ch. 13, Staging the Renaissance (Routledge,1991).
Daniel Vitkus, ‘Turks and Jews in The Jew of Malta’ in EMED.
Thomas Healy, ‘The Marlowe Effect’ and ‘Protestant drama’ in Writers and their Work:
Christopher Marlowe (Northcote House, 1994).
Alan Sinfield, ‘Tragedy, God and Writing’ in Faultlines (OUP, 1992).
There is a helpful collection of essays in, The Cambridge Companion to Christopher
Marlowe, ed., Patrick Cheney (CUP, 2004) with further reading lists for specific topics.
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2. Kings on Display
Essential Reading:
John Fletcher, The Maid’s Tragedy (1610)
Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (1592)
Further reading:
Also, think about the short court masque: Ben Jonson, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1618)
Also think about, Shakespeare, Richard II (1595)
Alan Stewart, ‘Edward II and Male Same-Sex Desire’, in EMED.
Jonathan Goldberg, ‘Sodomy and Society: The Case of Christopher Marlowe’, in Staging the
Renaissance
P.J.Finkelpearl, ‘The Maid’s Tragedy: Honorable Tyrannicide’ in Court and Country Politics
in the Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher (Princeton University Press, 1990).
Stephen Orgel, ‘Making Greatness Familiar’ in Pageantry in the Shakespearean Theatre, ed.,
D.Bergeron (University of Georgia, 1981).
Leonard Tennenhouse, ‘Playing and Power’, in Staging the Renaissance.
Dollimore and sinfield, History and Ideology: the Instance of Henry V’ in Alternative
Shakespeares, ed., John Drakakis (Methuen, 1985).
Jean Howard, ‘Kings and Pretenders: monarchical theatricality in the Shakespearean history
play’ in, The Stage and Social Struggle in Early Modern England (Routledge, 1994).
David Lindley, Introduction, Court Masques (OUP, 1995).
On the masque: Martin Butler, ‘The Masque of Blackness and Stuart Court Culture’in EMED.
Stephen Greenblatt, ‘Marlowe and the will to Absolute play’ in Renaissance Self-Fashioning
(The University of Chicago Press, 1980).
3. Staging London’s Tensions
Essential reading:
Ben Jonson, Epicoene (1609)
Thomas Middleton, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (1613)
Further reading:
Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker’s Holiday (1599)
David Scott Kastan, ‘Workshop and/as Playhouse’, in Staging the Renaissance.
Karen Newman, ‘City Talk: Women and Commodification’, in Staging the Renaissance.
Peggy Knapp, ‘Ben Jonson and the Publicke Riot, in Staging the Renaissance.
Margot Heinemann, Puritanism and Theatre: Thomas Middleton and Opposition drama
(CUP, 1980).
Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed: drama and the disciplines of shame in early
modern England (Cornell University Press, 1993) especially, Ch. 1, ‘Leaky vessels: the
incontinent women of city comedy’. pp. 23-63.
Swapan Chakravo, Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1996)
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Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire
(New York, 1985).
Leonard Tennenhouse, ‘Family Rites: city comedy and the strategies of patriarchalism’ in
Wilson and Dutton, New Historicism and Renaissance Drama (Longman, 1992).
Marjorie Garber, ‘The Logic of the Transvestite’ in Kastan and Stallybrass eds., Staging the
Renaissance. (1991)
L. Levine, ‘Men in Women’s Clothing’ in Men in Women’s Clothing: antitheatricality and
effeminization (1994).
Darryll Grantley, London in Early Modern English Drama (Palgrave, 2008).
Stephen Mullaney, The Place of the Stage: Licence, Play and Power in Renaissance England
(Chicago, 1998).
L. Manley, Literature and Culture in Early Modern London (1995) esp. Part III
P.Griffiths and M. Jenner, ed., Londinopolis: Essays in the Social and Cultural History of Early Modern
London (2000)
Julie Sanders (ed) Ben Jonson in Context (CUP, 2010)
Natasha Korda and Michelle David, Working Subjects in Early Modern Drama (Ashgate 2011)
A. Gurr, Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London (revised 2004) esp. chs. 2-3.
Mark Thornton Burnett, Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture (Macmillan,
1997).
D.Miehl, A.Stock and A-J Zwierlein, Plotting Early Modern London: New Essays in Jacobean City
Comedy (2004) chs., 3, 4, 6.
Jean-Christophe Agnew, Worlds Apart: the Market and Theatre in Anglo-American thought, 1550-1750
(CUP, 1986).
Gail Kern Paster, The Body Embarrassed (Cornell, 1993)
4. Lechery and Corruption at Court
Essential Reading:
John Webster, The White Devil (1612)
Marston, The Malcontent (1604)
Further Reading:
Thomas Middleton, The Revengers Tragedy (1607)
J.W. Lever, Introduction and Chapter 5, The Tragedy of State (Methuen, 1971).
Ann Rosalind Jones, ‘Italians and Others’ in Staging the Renaissance.
Peter Stallybrass, ‘Reading the Body and the Jacobean Theatre of Consumption’ in Staging
the Renaissance.
Luke Wilson, ‘The White Devil and the Law’, in EMED.
Jonathan Dollimore, ‘The White Devil: Transgression Without Virtue’, in Wilson and Dutton,
New Historicism and Renaissance Drama.
5. Revenge tragedy: more malcontents, incest and murder
Essential Reading:
John Ford, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1629-1633)
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, (1613-14)
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Further Reading:
If you're writing on this topic do look at some Senecan tragedy--Thyestes is a good start.
Terry Eagleton, Introduction, Sweet Violence: the idea of the tragic (Blackwell, 2003).
D. Callaghan, ‘The Duchess of Malfi and Early Modern widows’ in Early Modern English Drama,
eds, Sullivan, Cheney, Hadfield.
Susan Wiseman, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore: representing the incestuous body, Renaissance Bodies,
Gent and Llewellyn (Reaktion, 1990).
Frank Whigham, ‘Incest and Ideology’ in Staging the Renaissance, eds., Stallybrass and Kastan.
A.A.Bromham and Zara Bruzzi, The Changeling and the Years of Crisis, 1619-1624 (Pinter, 1990)
Michael Neill, Issues of Death: Mortality and Identity in English Renaissance Tragedy (Oxford, 1997).,
esp., 'The Endings of the Duchess of Malfi'.
Dympna Callaghan, ‘Women, tragedy and Transgression’, Women and Gender in Renaissance Tragedy
(Harvester, 1989).
Dympna Callaghan, ‘The Duchess of Malfi and Early Modern Widows’ in Early Modern English
Drama.
Carol Rutter, Chapter 1, in Enter the Body: women and representation on Shakespeare’s stage (2001)
Richard McCabe, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore and Incest’ in Early Modern English Drama.
Mark Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinities in Early Modern England (Cambridge: CUP, 1996).
6. Shakespearean Politics in Strange Guises.
Essential Reading:
William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1606)
Cymbeline (1609-10)
Further reading:
The introduction to Martin Butler’s edition of Cymbeline, (New Cambridge Shakespeare,
2005).
Kiernan Ryan, ‘Shakespearean Comedy and Romance: the Utopian Imagination’, New
Casebooks: Shakespeare’s Romances, ed., Alison Thorne (Palgrave: Basingstoke, 2003).
A. Thorne, ‘To write and read/ Be henceforth treacherous’: Cymbeline and the problem of
interpretation’, Shakespeare’s Late Plays.
Ruth Nevo, ‘Cymbeline: the rescue of the king’, New Casebooks: Shakespeare’s Romances.
Jodi Mikalachki, ‘The Masculine Romance of Roman Britain’ in New Casebooks:
Shakespeare’s Romances.
Leah Marcus, ch.3 ‘James’, Puzzling Shakespeare (1988).
D. Hamilton, ‘Cymbeline: the oath of allegiance and the English Catholic’ in Shakespeare and
the Politics of Protestant England (1992).
Ronald J. Boling, ‘Anglo-Welsh relations in Cymbeline’ , Shakespeare Quarterly 51 (2000)
33-66.
Leonard Tennenhouse, ‘Playing and Power’ in Staging the Renaissance.
Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft
Lyndal Roper, Oedipus and the Devil (Routledge, 1994)
Stuart Clark, Thinking With Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford, 1998).
Brian Easlea, Witch Hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy (Harvester, 1980).
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Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (Weidenfeld, 1971).
Diane Purkiss, The Witch in History (Routledge, 1996).
M.E. Wiesner, Ch. 7, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (C.U.P., 1993)
Janet Adelman, ‘Born of Woman: Fantasies of Maternal Power in Macbeth’, Cannibals, Witches and
Divorce: Estranging the Renaissance, ed., M. Garber, 1987. Also in Adelman, Suffocating Mothers.
Kathleen McLuskie, ‘Women and Cultural Production: The Case of Witchcraft’, Renaissance
Dramatists (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989).
Peter Stallybrass, ‘Macbeth and Witchcraft’, Focus on Macbeth, ed., John Russell Brown.
Jonathan Gil Harris, Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic: Discourses of Social Pathology in Early Modern
England (CUP, 1998).
7. Reading Week
8. Unruly Women, Family and State
Essential reading:
Anon, Arden of Faversham (c.1588-92)
Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women (c.1620-4)
Further reading:
Also think about William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
anon., New-Market Fayre or Mrs Parliament’s New Figaryes (1649)
Catherine Belsey, ‘Alice Arden’s Crime’, in Staging the Renaissance.
See Danielle Clarke’s essay on the politics of marriage , above (EMED).
Margot Heinemann, Puritanism and Theatre: Thomas Middleton and Opposition drama
(CUP, 1980).
Swapan Chakravo, Society and Politics in the Plays of Thomas Middleton (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1996)
Mark Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England (Cambridge: CUP,1996).
Lisa Jardine, ‘Introduction’, esp. chs. 1, 4, ‘Female roles and Elizabethan eroticism’, ‘Shrewd
9. Effeminate Rule and Tyranny
Essential Reading:
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1608)
Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam (c. 1603-8)
Further reading:
Mary Sidney, The Tragedy of Antonie, in Renaissance Drama by Women: texts and
documents eds., Cerasano and Wynne-Davies (Routledge, 1996)
Danielle Clarke, ‘The Tragedy of Mariam and the Politics of Marriage’ in EMED.
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Margaret W. Ferguson, ‘The Spectre of Resistance’, in Staging the Renaissance.
Catherine Belsey, ‘Cleopatra’s Seduction’ in Alternative Shakespeares vol. 2., ed., Terence
Hawkes (Routledge, 1996).
Kenneth Parker, Antony and Cleopatra (Writers and their Work, Northcote House, 2000).
John Drakakis, ed., New Casebooks: Antony and Cleopatra (Palgrave, 1994) .
10. Civil Wars’ Pornography and Restoration Libertinism
Essential Reading:
Wycherley, The Country Wife (1675)
A civil war playlet by ‘the man in the moon’, New-Market Fayre or Mrs Parliament’s New
Figaryes (1649)
Photocopied sample of the Earl of Rochester’s poetry
Eve Sedgwick, chapter 3, ‘The Country Wife: Anatomies of Male Homosocial Desire’ in
Between Men, pp. 49-66. The entire chapter is free in google books.
Further reading:
For contexts read ‘Stages, Actors and Audiences’ section in Restoration and EighteenthCentury Comedy, Norton Critical Edition, ed., Scott McMillin.
Jocelyn Powell, ‘Visual Rhythm in The Country Wife’, in Norton Critical Edition, pp. 582592.
On Wit, Humour and Laughter 1650- in Norton Critical Edition, especially Hobbes, 457-465.
Jeremy W. Webster, Performing Libertinism in Charles II’s Court (Palgrave, 2005).
James Grantham Turner, Libertines and Radicals in Early Modern London: sexuality, politics
and literary culture (Cambridge University Press, 2002), esp. chapters 5 and 6.
Paula Findlen, ‘Humanism, Politics and Pornography’ in The Invention of Pornography, ed.,
Lynn Hunt (New York: Zone Books, 1993).
and, in the same volume, Rachel Weil, ‘Sometimes a Scepter is Only a Scepter’
Susan J. Owen, Perspectives on Restoration Drama (Manchester University Press, 2002).
Paula R.Backscheider, Spectacular Politics (John Hopkins, 1993).
The Cambridge Companion to Restoration Theatre, ed., Deborah Payne Fisk (CUP, 2000).
Jonathan Brody Kramnick, ‘Rochester and the History of Sexuality’, English Literary History
69:2 (2002).
11. The Commodified Body and the Politics of Marriage
Essential reading:
Aphra Behn, The Rover (1677)
George Etherege, The Man of Mode (1676)
Further reading:
Restoration Stages, Actors (including the arrival of the actress) and Audiences in Norton
Critical Edition, pp. 535-563.
Aphra Behn, The Rover and Other Plays (Oxford Worlds Classics)
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Susan Wiseman, Aphra Behn (1996; Northcote House, 2007)
Janet Todd, ed., New Casebooks, Aphra Behn (Macmillan, 1999)
D. Hughes, The Theatre of Aphra Behn (Palgrave, 2001)
Harriet Hawkins on The Man of Mode, essay in Norton Critical Edition, pp. 592-97.
Elin Diamond, ‘Gestus and Signature in Aphra Behn’s The Rover’ in Norton Critical Edition,
pp. 597-611.
12. Dissertation tutorials (outline required this week)
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