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Full-Text Articles in Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory

Stranger Compass Of The Stage: Difference And Desire In Early Modern City Comedy, Catherine Tisdale Apr 2021

Stranger Compass Of The Stage: Difference And Desire In Early Modern City Comedy, Catherine Tisdale

Doctoral Dissertations

In periods of social and political upheaval like ours, it is more important than ever to interrogate constructions of identity and difference and to understand the histories of alterity that separate us from one another. Stranger Compass of the Stage: Difference and Desire in Early Modern City Drama reimagines the cultural and social effect of alien, foreign, and stranger characters on the early modern stage and re-envisions how these characters contribute to, alter, and imaginatively build new epistemologies for understanding difference in early modern London. Resisting the field’s current critical inclination toward English identity formation, this project works intersectionally to …

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Playing Devil's Advocate: The Attractive Shakespearean Villain, Jonathan Montgomery Green May 2012

Playing Devil's Advocate: The Attractive Shakespearean Villain, Jonathan Montgomery Green

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The characters of William Shakespeare have spawned countless words of critical interpretation inspired by the playwright's aptitude for fashioning intricate and conflicted figures. As a master character craftsman, Shakespeare is consistent in creating fascinatingly deep characters, and many of them have even gone so far as to generate entire literary archetypes. From the contemplative Prince Hamlet to the despicable yet charming John Falstaff, Shakespeare's characters remain eternal representatives of what any good character should be: interesting, provocative, and complicated.

However, among the playwright's most hypnotic figures are his villains, those characters whom audiences should by all counts detest but cannot …

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"A Comely Presentation And The Habit To Admiration Reverend": Ecclesiastical Apparel On The Early Modern English Stage, Robert Lublin Dec 2007

"A Comely Presentation And The Habit To Admiration Reverend": Ecclesiastical Apparel On The Early Modern English Stage, Robert Lublin

Robert Lublin

Notions of the sacred and the profane took on a particular significance in late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century England. This period, chronologically circumscribed on one side by the Protestant Reformation and on the other by the Civil War, was a time of enormous religious change. These changes found articulation in the theatre of the period. Plays such as Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Shakespeare’s Henry VIII and Middleton’s A Game at Chess make significant use of historically specific understandings of Protestantism and Catholicism. Scholars have noted the religious aspects of these plays before, but what has garnered less critical attention is the manner …

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“Whosoever Loves Not Picture, Is Injurious To Truth": Costumes And The Stuart Masque, Robert Lublin Dec 2006

“Whosoever Loves Not Picture, Is Injurious To Truth": Costumes And The Stuart Masque, Robert Lublin

Robert Lublin

No abstract provided.

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“An Vnder Black Dubblett Signifying A Spanish Hart”: Costumes And Politics In Middleton’S A Game At Chess, Robert Lublin Dec 2006

“An Vnder Black Dubblett Signifying A Spanish Hart”: Costumes And Politics In Middleton’S A Game At Chess, Robert Lublin

Robert Lublin

The political significance of Middleton’s A Game at Chess has drawn scholarly attention in the past, but one promising area of study has gone largely unconsidered: the play’s visual presentation. How did the actors appear when they first performed the play and how was that visual information received by early modern London audiences? This essay seeks to establish what costumes were worn by the King’s Men for their production of Middelton’s play and, more importantly, how they were received by their contemporary audience. Through such a study, we learn that Middleton employed costumes as skillfully as he used dialogue to …

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