Description
Book SynopsisArden of Faversham * A Woman Killed with Kindness * The Witch of Edmonton * The English TravellerIn about 1590, an unknown dramatist had the idea of writing a tragedy about the lives of ordinary people, instead of the genre''s usual complement of kings and queens and politicians. His play, Arden of Faversham, inaugurated a new genre of ''domestic'' drama, set in near-contemporary England and concerned with issues of marriage, crime, and property rather than war and power. Arden dramatizes a notorious murder case of forty years earlier, in which a wealthy husband was killed by his wife and her lover.In Thomas Heywood''s A Woman Killed with Kindness, a wife is caught by her husband in bed with his best friend, only to find that he takes unusual reprisals. The Witch of Edmonton combines a true-life story of witchcraft with a fictitious tale of bigamy and wife-murder, and The English Traveller deals with the unexpected and unwelcome changes people find when they return home after a lengthy
Table of ContentsIntroduction ; Note on the Texts ; Select Bibliography ; A Chronology of the Plays and their Genre ; THE TRAGEDY OF MASTER ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM ; A WOMEN KILLED WITH KINDNESS ; THE WITCH OF EDMONTON ; THE ENGLISH TRAVELLER ; Appendix 1: The Unknown Author of Arden of Faversham ; Appendix 2: The Date of The English Traveller ; Explanatory Notes ; Glossary
