Description
Book SynopsisSeeks to reassess the dramatic output of the Commonwealth, Protectorate and early Restoration; a period that has often been marginalised by specialists of both Renaissance and Restoration drama. -- .
Trade ReviewSTAGING THE REVOLUTION: DRAMA, REVINVENTION, AND HISTORY 1647-72 (Manchester) is a truly remarkable contribution to our understanding of interregnum and post-Restoration theatre. Its central argument — that the drama across the period is marked by striking continuities as well as disruptions — is sustained with a deeply impressive scholarly command; and the sheer range of reference, both primary and secondary, is exceptional. Any easy assumptions we might have entertained about the relationship between republican culture and theatrical practice are authoritatively overturned, and the study gives the great satisfaction of returning us from a broad idea of historical change to the much greater real complexity that happened at the time.
University English Early Career book prize 2016 (Shortlisted)
‘Rachel Willie’s Staging the Revolution is an exceptional book. A polished piece of clear argumentation and persuasive writing on a notoriously undervalued and understudied period of English theatrical history, the Interregnum and the responses to the Civil War on the Restoration stage, this text is one of the best new books of the year…This exquisitely researched book shifts the ground of analysis of this period in a way that will be felt for years to come.’
Andrew Bretz, Wilfrid Laurier University, Shakespeare Bulletin, Volume 35, Number 1, Spring 2017
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Table of ContentsIntroduction: Of 1647, theatre closure and reinvention
1. The paper stage
2. Fairs, ghosts, tyranny and usurpation: debating the body politic on the paper stage
3. Reinventing the masque: Shirley and Davenant’s protectorate entertainments
4. Heroic drama on the commonwealth and Restoration stage
5. Ideas of panegyric in early Restoration comedy
Epilogue: Of 1688 and reinventing the past
Bibliography
Index
