The Misfortunes of Arthur, written by Thomas Hughes is one of the earliest printed plays from the English Renaissance and, as such, deserves its place of interest in dramaturgical studies for its historical significance. It offers a detailed literary evocation of Elizabethan anti-imperial thinking and a genuine desire to debate controversial questions. The play takes a sceptical view of Arthur and provides evidence of a political point of view that must have had a significant number of supporters in 1588 when it was performed for Elizabeth I on the eve of the Spanish Armada. It is also not difficult to find themes in The Misfortunes of Arthur which would find expression again in the later Renaissance drama. The fact that the play shares affinities with such diverse plays as Gorboduc and The Spanish Tragedy indicates that it holds a pivotal position in a time of theatrical flux. It provides a single, concise encapsulation of the Arthurian chronicle in a literary form, a drama, that students will find more engaging than chronicles or lengthy romances. This reissue of the 1992 Garland edition is of value to scholars because of the original spelling and source study contained within the work. It also contains helpful historical context in the introduction and a useful diagram of the Elizabethan stage which both students and scholars will find useful.

Surveying the development and varieties of blank verse in the English playhouses, this book is a natural history of iambic pentameter in English. Marina Tarlinskaja’s statistical analysis of versification focuses on Shakespeare, but places his work in the literary context of the times. Her results offer new ways to think about the dating of plays, the attribution of anonymous texts, and how collaborators divided their task in co-authored dramas.

Examining the origins of the Arthurian legend and major trends in the portrayal of Arthur from the Middle Ages to the present, this collection focuses on discussion of literature written in English, French, Latin, and German. Its 16 essays, four published here for the first time, deal with such matters as the search for the historical Arthur; the depiction of Arthur in the romances Erec and Iwein of Hartmann von Aue; the way Arthur is depicted in 19th-century art and the Victorian view of manhood; and conceptions of King Arthur in 20th-century literature. Six of the essays, originally published in French and German, are translated into English especially for this book. Two essays have been substantially revised. An introduction offers a general discussion of the development of the legends in the countries of Europe. Works discussed include medieval and Renaissance chronicles (Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, Wace's Roman de Brut, Polydore Vergil's Anglica Historia, Scottish vernacular and Latin chronicles), medieval romances (the Lancelot en prose, the Mort Artu, the Post-Vulgate Roman du Graal, and works of Chrétien de Troyes, Hartmann von Aue, and Sir Thomas Malory), Spenser's Faerie Queene, Tennyson's Idylls of the King, and T.H. White's Once and Future King. A bibliography lists selected major secondary studies of King Arthur as well as major reference works.