This study combines a consideration of the general issues affecting Elizabethan and Jacobean tragedy with particular comment on plays.

The domination of the state over the lives of individuals is a problem of the present-day world. In Jacobean tragedy J.W. Lever finds essentially the same problem in the shape it assumed during the rise of the first European nation states. The English dramatists of the early seventeenth century are seen as giving expression to the ferment of ideas which, only a generation later, precipitated the revolutionary struggles of the 1640s. Some of the major Jacobean tragedies are seen in this book as having a close bearing upon the vital issues of our own age; not only the evils of tyranny but the ambivalent ethics of revolt are explored. When it was first published in 1971, 'The Tragedy of State' presented a challenge to the dominant view of Jacobean tragedy: often interpreted in terms of the Elizabethan World Picture, the drama was held by many in a conservative light. Now increasingly recognized as a forerunner to modern work on the Renaissance, this classic volume has been unavailable in paperback for many years. It is reissued with a new introduction in which Jonathan Dollimore sketches briefly some of the larger critical, intellectual, aesthetic and political issues that concerned Lever and which remain current within contemporary cultural criticism and literary theory. The accompanying references provide students with a guide to recent work which is transforming the study of Renaissance drama.

Originally published in 1982. The Poetics of Jacobean Drama argues for a rediscovered approach to the study of Renaissance drama. Coburn Freer observes that most modern criticism of this drama treats the plays as if they were written in prose, thus overlooking whole areas of dramatic meaning that were understood in the past. Such an understanding, he asserts, was common among writers, actors, audiences, and readers of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, and a knowledge of it is essential to a full appreciation of the characterization and dramatic structures in these plays. Freer explores the evolution of the modern reluctance to approach Renaissance drama as one would dramatic poetry—from the standpoint of a listener. Blank verse, the author shows, provided Jacobean dramatists with a poetic form against which they could work the pressures of experience within their characters. The writers' ability to work with and against this form provided infinite resources for delineating character and creating significant coherences in the structure of a play. The Poetics of Jacobean Drama offers insights into what the Renaissance writer, actor, and playgoer would have regarded as the domain of poetry in drama. Topics discussed include the conditions of stage performance and the style of acting, Elizabethan education, the rise of printed texts and collected editions, and the comments of Elizabethan audiences and readers. Freer's commentary and theoretical explanations suggest both why and how we should pay closer attention to the poetry of Renaissance drama.

One of the smash hits of the late 1580s and 90s, Tamburlaine established blank verse as the poetic line of English Renaissance drama, Edward Alleyn as the first English star actor and Marlowe as one of the foremost playwrights of his time. The rise and fall of a Scythian peasant-warrior who conquers the Middle East and is struck down by illness after burning the books of the Koran is presented in two parts crammed with theatrical splendour and equally spectacular cruelty. Marlowe's original audiences were delighted with the blasphemous and ruthlessly ambitious hero; the introduction to this edition discusses the problems that such a character poses for modern audiences and highlights the undercurrents of the play that lead towards a more ironic interpretation.

A Study Guide for "Elizabethan Drama," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Literary Movements for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Literary Movements for Students for all of your research needs.