Description
Book SynopsisCovering dramatic works by Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, and others-and reflecting upon subjects ranging from social attitudes towards racial difference and adultery to the politics of mercantilism and the hierarchy of master/servant relationships-the book reenergizes the discussion of Renaissance drama and history.
Trade ReviewImpressive. Sixteenth-Century Journal This well-written, convenient collection... [is] a valuable and insightful addition to critical studies. Choice Applies, challenges, and expands the work of a new historicism. ANQ
Table of Contents1. The Stage and Social Order 1. Servant Obedience and Master Sins: Shakespeare and the Bonds of Service 2. "This Gentle Gentleman": Social Change and the Language of Status in Arden of Faversham 3. Massinger's Patriarchy: The Social Vision of A New Way to Pay Old Debts 4. "The Tongues of Angels": Charity and the Social Order in The City Madam 5. "In Everything Illegitimate": Imagining the Bastard in English Renaissance Drama 6. Bastardy, Counterfeiting, and Misogyny in The Revenger's Tragedy 7. "Amphitheaters in the Body": Playing with Hands on the Shakespearean Stage 2. Race, Nation, Empire 8. Changing Places in Othello 9. "Unproper Beds": Race, Adultery and the Hideous in Othello 10. "Mulattos," "Blacks," and "Indian Moors": Othello and Early Modern Constructions of Human Difference 11. Putting History to the Question: An Episode of Torture at Bantam in Java, 1604 12. "Material Flames": Romance, Empire, and Mercantile Fantasy in John Fletcher's Island Princess 13. Broken English and Broken Irish: Nation, Language, and the Optic of Power in Shakespeare's Histories 14. "The Exact Map or Discovery of Human Affairs": Shakespeare and the Plotting of History 15. The World Beyond: Shakespeare and the Tropes of Translation
