Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama: Companion York Notes

Introduction

Overview, Notes

1594: A Year in the Drama and Society of Elizabethan London

After the Plague, Discord and Debate: The Political Sphere, Consumer Society in Early-Modern London, The Theatre as a Commercial Space, 'Choice Without Shame': The Repertory System, Notes

Comedies of Eros

Galatea and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Extended Commentary: Twelfth Night (1601), Notes

Shakespeare's History Plays

Richard III and Henry IV Part 1, Extended Commentary: Henry V (1599), Notes

Tyranny, Terror and Tragedy on the English Stage

Doctor Faustus, Othello and Macbeth, Extended Commentary: Hamlet (1600), Notes

Tragicomedy

All's Well That Ends Well and Philaster, Extended Commentary: The Tempest (1611), Notes

Comedies of Humour, Comedies of Pain

Every Man in His Humour and The Fawn, Extended Commentary: Volpone (1606), Notes

Jacobean Revenge Drama

The Revenger's Tragedy and Women Beware Women, Extended Commentary: The Duchess of Malfi (1614), Notes

Madness and Subjectivity

Depictions of Madness, Materialist Readings of Madness in The Changeling, 'Madness in Great Ones': Hamlet, Twelfth Night, King Lear, The Mad Under the Gaze, Hideous Darkness: The Plight of Malvolio, Troubling the Microcosm in King Lear, Between Subjectivities: The Madness of Poor Tom, Notes

Rhetoric and Performance

The Art of Rhetoric, Figures in Speech, Figures in Speech 2: Competitive Rhetoric, Figures in Speech 3: Poetic Persuasions, Figures in Action, Figures in Action 2: Performance and Pronunciation, Notes

Women at the Margins

Problematising Marriage, Mad Moll: The Roaring Girl, The Grotesque Body of the Fair: Ursula in Bartholomew Fair, Domestic Inversions: The Witch of Edmonton, Notes

Nation-Building

The Need for a Collective Identity, Land and Language: Negotiating English Nationhood in the Plays of the 1590s, Race, Nation, Impersonation, Laws of Nature and of Nations: Henry V, Nation and Assassination: Jacobean Readings of the Body Politic, Notes

Timeline

Further Reading

General Resources, Social and Political History, Theatre and Literary History, Theatrical Genres, Key Themes and Critical Approaches