The specter of Spain rarely figures in our discussions of the drama that is often regarded as the crowning achievement of the English literary Renaissance. Yet dramatists such as Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare are exactly contemporary with England's protracted conflict with the Spanish Empire, a traditional ally turned archetypical adversary. Were these playwrights really so mute with respect to their nation's Spanish troubles? Or have we failed—for reasons cultural and institutional—to hear the Hispanophobic crosstalk that permeated the drama no less than England's other public discourses? Imagining an early modern public sphere in which dramatists cross pens with proto-imperialists, Protestant polemicists, recusant apologists, and a Machiavellian network of propagandists that included high government officials as well as journeyman printers, Eric Griffin uncovers the rhetorical strategies through which the Hispanophobic perspectives that shaped the so-called Black Legend of Spanish Cruelty were written into English cultural memory. At the same time, he demonstrates that the English were as ready to invoke Spain in the spirit of envious emulation as to demonize the Spanish other as an ethnic agent of intolerance and oppression. Interrogating the Whiggish orientation that has continued to view the English Renaissance through a haze of Anglo-American triumphalism, English Renaissance Drama and the Specter of Spain recovers the voices of key Spanish participants and the "Hispanized" Catholic resistance, revealing how England and Spain continued to draw upon shared traditions and cultural resources, even during the moments of their most storied confrontation.

Spain alone produced a Renaissance drama comparable to that of England, yet the two nations were enemies, separated by the worldwide conflict of Catholics and Protestants. Major dramatists on both sides addressed the divisive issues: Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Calderon de la Barca in Spain; Shakespeare, Marlowe, Chapman, Massinger, and Middleton in England. In this comprehensive work, a distinguished authority on drama examines history plays, masques, and spectacles, with close attention to the changing development of the two national dramas, he directs us to the study of their suprrising similarities. The author's lucid exposition makes possible an assessment of the commentary on historical events provided by the dramatists. In the early years of the Thirty Years' War, he points out, dramtaists unknowingly carried on a dialogue now audible to us: Massinger and Middleton warn of Spain's intentions; Lope, Tirso, and Calderon provide assurance that their English coutnerparts were not alarmists. Goruping works chronologically by subject or thematic relevance to phases of Anglo-Spanish relations in broad European context, Professor Loftis examines Lope's plays about the campaigns fought by the Spanish Army of Flanders and Marlowe's and Chapman's plays about French history from 1572 to 1602. John Loftis is Margery Bailey Professor of English Emeritus at Stanford University. He is author of numerous works, including The Spanish Plays of Neoclassical England (Yale) and Sheridan and the Drama of Georgian England (Blackwell/Harvard). Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The book considers the London theatrical culture which took shape in the 1570s and came to an end in 1642. Places emphasis on those plays that are readily available in modern editions and can sometimes to be seen in modern productions, including Shakespeare. Provides students with the historical, literary and theatrical contexts they need to make sense of Renaissance drama. Includes a series of short biographies of playwrights during this period. Features close analyses of more than 20 plays, each of which draws attention to what makes a particular play interesting and identifies relevant critical questions. Examines early modern drama in terms of its characteristic actions, such as cuckolding, flattering, swaggering, going mad, and rising from the dead.

Reflecting a variety of scholarly interests, this volume includes articles that range addressing Africans in Elizabeth London to chapel stagings, to the theory and practice of domestic tragedy. It also includes essays on the historical and theoretical issues relating to the evolution of dramatic texts and women at the theater.

Introducing the reader to important topics in English Renaissance tragedy, this Companion presents fresh readings of key texts.

This book constitutes a new direction for feminist studies in English Renaissance drama. While feminist scholars have long celebrated heroic females in comedies, many have overlooked female tragic heroism, reading it instead as evidence of pervasive misogyny on the part of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Displacing prevailing arguments of "victim feminism," the contributors to this volume engage a wide range of feminist theories, and argue that female protagonists in tragedies - Jocasta, Juliet, Cleopatra, Mariam, Webster's Duchess and White Devil, among others - are heroic in precisely the same ways as their more notorious masculine counterparts.

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Justice, Women, and Power in English Reniassance Drama is a collection of essays that explores the relationship of gender and justice as represented in English Renaissance drama. Many of the essays are concerned with interrogating the ways that women relied upon and/or reacted to the legal (and overarching political) systems in early modern England. Other essays examine issues involving the role of narrative, evidence, and gendered expectations about justice in the plays of this time period. An implicit concern of these essays is whether women were empowered or dis-empowered in this interaction with the legal/political system.

"Each play is prefaced by an introductory headnote discussing the thematic focus of the play and its textual history, and is cross-referenced to other plays of the period that relate thematically and generically."--BOOK JACKET.