Time And Causality In Early Modern Drama

Time and Causality in Early Modern Drama

The opening of the first commercial theatre in London in 1579 initiated a pattern of development that radically reshaped representation. The competition among theatres required the constant production of new works, creating an interplay between the innovations of producers and the rapidly changing perceptions of audiences. The result was a process of incremental change that redefined perceptions of time, action, and identity. Aristotle in the Poetics contrasted a similar set of formal developments to the earlier system of the epics, which, like many predecessors of early modern drama, had emerged from largely oral traditions. Located in the context of contemporary relations between the academy and Indigenous communities, Time and Causality in Early Modern Drama: Plotting Revenge traces these developments through changes in the revenge tragedy form and questions our abilities, habituated to literacy, to fully understand or appreciate the complexity and operations of oral systems. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Time and Causality in Early Modern Drama

New Essays on History and Form in Early Modern English Literature

This volume convenes eight noted scholars with varied positions at the interface of formal and historical literary criticism. The editors’ introduction—a far-reaching account of how both methods have intersected in studies of early modern English texts since the 1990s—is the first such survey in more than 15 years, making it invaluable to scholars entering this area. Three essays address foundational questions about genre, fictionality, and formlessness; five feature close readings of texts or passages ranging from the more canonical (Shakespeare, Herbert, Milton) to the less so (an official record of the 1604 Hampton Court Conference). For scholars and students alike, the book thus models a variety of ways both to conceptualize and to analyze the value of literature at the formal–historical interface. Encompassing drama, lyric, satirical and polemical prose, and metrical as well as rhetorical and logical forms, the collection closes with an afterword by theorist Caroline Levine.