Description
Book SynopsisExploring the network of social, political and spiritual connections in north west England during Shakespeare's formative years, this text discusses how the surrounding cultural context may have shaped him as an artist, looking at "Twelfth Night", "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
List of illustrations
1. Introduction
2. "The useless dearness of the diamond": patronage theatre and households – Suzanne Westfall
3. The management of mirth: Shakepeare via Bourdieu – Richard Wilson
4. Between astrology and adolatry: modes of temporal repetition in Romeo and Juliet – Phillipa Berry
5. Country house, Catholicity and the cryptic in Twelfth Night – Anne Lecercle
6. Recusancy, festivity and community: The Simpsons at Gowlthwaite Hall – Phebe Jensen
7. Suicide at the elephant and castle or, did the lady vanish? Alternative endings for early modern women writers –
Marion Wynne Davies
8. Shakespeare and Lancaster – Richard Dutton
9. The Shireburnes of Stonyhurst: memory and survival in a Lancashire Catholic recusant family – John Callow and Michael Mullett
10. Lancashire, Shakepeare and the cosntrucion of cultural neighbourhoods in sixteenth century England – Mary A. Blackstone
11. A family tradition: Dramatic patronage by the Earls of Derby – Sally-Beth MacLean
12. The playhouse at Prescot and the 1592–4 plague – David George
13. Regional performance in Shakepeare's time – Peter Greenfield
Index
