Spectacular Imaginings 2015-16
Spectacular Imaginings: Renaissance Drama and the Stage 1580-1640
Spectacular Imaginings explores English Renaissance drama and its staging between the advent of
the commercial theatres in London (circa 1580) and their closure during the early 1640s as a
consequence of the English Civil War. This new module has been developed with, and will be
co-taught by, scholars and theatre practitioners at Globe Education, Shakespeare’s Globe. The
Globe’s programme at both its new indoor Jacobean theatre (the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), as
well as its main outdoor theatre, will form an important part of this module with students
attending performances at both venues. The module will focus on a selection of plays from this
period, exploring them in their original social, cultural and aesthetic contexts. It will also reflect
upon why plays from this era are so frequently and successfully re-produced for the modern
stage and screen. What roles did theatre play in London during the Renaissance and why was
England virtually unique in Europe (Spain is the only counterpart) in creating a large-scale
commercial theatre that generated a vast corpus of new plays? The module examines many of
the most significant themes with which this theatre engages; among them, unruly sexualities
(incest, adultery, rape); violence and eloquence; London and city commerce; domestic tragedy;
marriage and divorce; the place of the court; the foreign and the exotic; and the supernatural. It
considers the roles of genre, acting styles, theatre companies, star actors, boy players, audiences
and the varying physical spaces of the theatres in mediating these themes. Students will have
access to the unique Globe archives when researching their dissertation projects. A variety of
genres will be studied (tragedies, comedies, tragi-comedies and histories) and four of the plays
have been determined by the Globe’s season.
Module convenor: Prof Margaret Healy (Office, Arts B233) Office Hours:
Learning outcomes and Assessment
I would like to invite all students to submit several small passages of writing (handed to me
throughout the period of the module) or one passage of 600 words that you would like some
feedback on. I can read and comment on up to 600 words of the actual dissertation draft. This
written work will not be given a grade but it can serve as a focus for feedback about your
dissertation project.
One 6000 word dissertation (the word count does not include footnotes and bibliography) due
in the Summer term (exact date on Sussex Direct) should demonstrate:
1) the ability to research widely and acquire expertise in an area of particular interest; 2) an
accurate understanding on the interplay of drama and performance with the social and political
contexts of early modern England; 3) an ability to analyse the ways in which drama responds to
commercial demands and shifts in aesthetic ‘taste’; 4) the skills requisite to organising complex
material into an extended piece of written work.
Essential purchases: English Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology eds., Engle, Maus,
Rasmussen (W.W.Norton@Company, 2002); Oxford Compact Shakespeare, or Arden or Norton
Shakespeare; plus Suzanne Gossett (ed.), Pericles (Arden third series).
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). 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.
Course Delivery: Weekly Monday afternoon lectures plus four 2hr seminars on Thursday
afternoons at the Globe Theatre in London, three of them followed by an evening performance
of the play studied, in the Sam Wanamaker Theatre. These will be interspersed with 2 hour
seminars on Thursdays in the remaining weeks at the University of Sussex.
Students will make their own travel arrangements to and from London but theatre tickets will be
block-booked by the School of English. The cost to students for the 3 performances will be
approximately £30 in total.
Week 1 (Mon 1 Feb-Fri 5 Feb):
(Monday introductory lecture and Thursday seminar both at Sussex)
Kings on Display: the spectacle of kingship
Essential Reading:
John Fletcher, The Maid’s Tragedy (1610)
Christopher Marlowe, Edward II (1592)
Ben Jonson, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (1618) (a copy of this short court masque will be
provided)
Further reading:
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).
Week 2 (Mon 8 Feb to Fri 12 Feb):
(Monday lecture at Sussex on The Winter’s Tale and Thursday afternoon and evening at the
Globe)
Globe, Introductory session February 11, 2016 – Spectating and The Winter’s Tale (15.4517-45 assemble in the Globe foyer by the desk, and evening performance of The Winter’s
Tale)
Essential Reading:
Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
Moving Shakespeare Indoors: Performance and Repertoire in the Jacobean Playhouse, ed. Andrew Gurr and
Farah Karim-Cooper (Cambridge: 2014) [Chapters 8 and 10]
Shakespeare’s Theatres and the Effects of Performance, ed. Farah Karim-Cooper and Tiffany Stern
(Arden: 2012) [Ch. 11]
Richard Meek, ‘Ekphrasis in The Rape of Lucrece and The Winter’s Tale, Studies in English Literature,
1500-1900 46.2 (Spring 2006), 389-414.
Week 3 (Mon 15 Feb to Friday 19 Feb)
(Monday lecture at Sussex)
The Tempest: Staging a Spectacle
Globe, Thursday 18 February, 15.45-17.45 seminar, and evening performance of The
Tempest.
Essential Reading
Shakespeare, The Tempest
Gwilym Jones, ‘Storm Effects in Shakespeare’, in Farah Karim-Cooper and Tiffany Stern (eds),
Shakespeare’s Theatre and the Effects of Performance (Bloomsbury, 2013), 33-50
Hannah Crawforth, Sarah Dustagheer and Jennifer Young, Shakespeare in London (Bloomsbury,
2014), ‘Experimentation in Shakespeare’s London: The Tempest and Lime Street’, 195-220
David Lindley, ‘Music, Masque and Meaning in The Tempest’, The Court Masque, ed. David
Lindley (1984).
Week 4 (Mon 22 Feb to Fri 26 Feb)
Incest, Violence and Spectacular Murder
Essential Reading:
John Ford, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1629-1633)
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, (1613-14)
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).
Week 5 (Mon 29 Feb to Fri 4 March)
Staging London and its 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)
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).j
Week 6: (Mon 7 March to 3 Fri 11 March)
Lechery, Corruption and Spectacular Revenge
Essential Reading:
Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy (late 1580s)
John Webster, The White Devil (1612)
Further Reading:
Thomas Middleton, The Revengers Tragedy (1607)
Marston, The Malcontent (1604)
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.
James Shapiro, ‘”Tragedies Naturally Performed”: Kyd's Representation of Violence’, Staging the
Renaissance, eds., Kastan and Stallybrass.
Gregory Semenza, ‘The Spanish Tragedy and Revenge’ in Early Modern English Drama.
Week 7 (Mon 14 March to Fri 18 March)
Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling: Sex, Gesture and Dumbshow. Thursday 17
March, 15.45 to 17.45, workshop at the Globe but no evening performance.
Essential Reading
Middleton, The Changeling
Frances E. Dolan, ‘Re-reading Rape in The Changeling’, Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies
Vol. 11, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2011), pp. 4-29.
Kim Solga, Violence Against Women in Early Modern Performance: Invisible Acts (Palgrave, 2009)
[Chapter 5, ‘The Architecture of the Act: Removing Beatrice’s Joanna’s Closet’]
Further Reading
Celia R. Daileader, Eroticism on the Renaissance Stage: Transcendence, Desire, and the Limits of the Visible
(Cambridge, 1998)
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)
EASTER VACATION (From Saturday 19 March to Sunday 3 April—holiday, no teaching)
Week 8 (Mon 4 April to Friday 8 April)
Unruly Women, Family and State
Essential reading:
Anon, Arden of Faversham (c.1588-92)
Shakespeare, Macbeth (1606)
Further reading:
Also relevant to this topic: The Taming of the Shrew; Women Beware Women; The Tragedy
of Mariam.
Catherine Belsey, ‘Alice Arden’s Crime’, in Staging the Renaissance.
See Danielle Clarke’s essay on the politics of marriage , above (EMED).
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).
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.
Week 9 (Mon 11 April to Fri 15 April)
Pericles: Staging the Sea, Globe seminar Thursday 14 April, 15.45 to 17.45, followed by
evening performance of Pericles
Essential Reading
Suzanne Gossett (ed.), Pericles (Arden third series) –[Introduction]
Gwilym Jones, Shakespeare’s Storms (Manchester University Press, 2015), [‘Pericles: storm and
scripture’, 108-124]
Steve Mentz, At the Bottom of Shakespeare's Ocean (Bloomsbury, 2009), [Chapter 5, ‘Fishing:
Pericles’].
Week 10 (Mon 18 April to Fri 22 April)
Thursday 21 April
Spectacular Imaginings: Round Table, Questions, Discussion and Conclusions
one-to-one tutorials in ArtsB233 with plan for BA dissertation or MA term paper
Week 11 (Mon 25 April to Fri 28 April) one-to-one tutorials in ArtsB233 with plan for BA
dissertation or MA term paper
Week 12 (Mon 2 May to Fri 6 May) No teaching. This week in the School of English is for
dissertation and term paper writing, advice and exam revision. I will be available in my
office hours. The School Examining period begins on 12 May.