Dr Matthew Steggle's Books

Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England

Ten Case Studies

By: Dr Matthew Steggle

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Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England

Ten Case Studies

By: Dr Matthew Steggle

This book establishes new information about the likely content of ten lost plays from the period 1580–1642. The plays’ authors include Nashe, Heywood, and Dekker; and they connect in direct ways to some of the most canonical dramas of English literature, including Hamlet, King Lear, The Changeling, and The Duchess of Malfi. In the process, the study offers innovative thinking both on the practicalities of digital humanities and on the emerging field of lost play studies.

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Page Count

213

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409444147

ISBN 13

9781409444145

Christopher Marlowe and the Failure to Unify

By: Dr Andrew Duxfield

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Christopher Marlowe and the Failure to Unify

By: Dr Andrew Duxfield

In this sustained full length study of Marlowe's plays, Andrew Duxfield argues that Marlovian drama exhibits a marked interest in unity and unification, and that in doing so it engages with a discourse of anxiety over social discord that was prominent in the 1580s and 1590s. Duxfield’s focus on unity as a theme throughout the plays provides a new lens through which to examine the place of Marlowe’s work in its cultural moment.

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Page Count

177

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472439511

ISBN 13

9781472439512

Staging Authority in Caroline England

Prerogative, Law and Order in Drama, 1625–1642

By: Dr Jessica Dyson

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Staging Authority in Caroline England

Prerogative, Law and Order in Drama, 1625–1642

By: Dr Jessica Dyson

Considering plays by Philip Massinger, Richard Brome, Ben Jonson, John Ford and James Shirley, this study addresses the political import of Caroline drama as it engages with contemporary struggles over authority between royal prerogative, common law and local custom in seventeenth-century England. How are these different aspects of law and government constructed and negotiated in plays of the period? What did these stagings mean in the increasingly unstable political context of Caroline England? Beginning each chapter with a summary of the legal and political debates relevant to the forms of authority contested in the plays of that chapter, Jessica Dyson responds to these kinds of questions, arguing that drama provides a medium whereby the political and legal debates of the period may be presented to, and debated by, a wider audience than the more technical contemporary discourses of law could permit. In so doing, this book transforms our understanding of the Caroline commercial theatre’s relationship with legal authority.

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Page Count

376

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472403401

ISBN 13

9781472403407

The Disguised Ruler in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries

By: Dr Kevin A Quarmby

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The Disguised Ruler in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries

By: Dr Kevin A Quarmby

In the early seventeenth century, the London stage often portrayed a ruler covertly spying on his subjects. Traditionally deemed 'Jacobean disguised ruler plays', these works include Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Marston's The Malcontent and The Fawn, Middleton's The Phoenix, and Sharpham's The Fleer. Commonly dated to the arrival of James I, these plays are typically viewed as synchronic commentaries on the Jacobean regime. Kevin A. Quarmby demonstrates that the disguised ruler motif actually evolved in the 1580s. It emerged from medieval folklore and balladry, Tudor Chronicle history and European tragicomedy. Familiar on the Elizabethan stage, these incognito rulers initially offered light-hearted, romantic entertainment, only to suffer a sinister transformation as England awaited its ageing queen's demise. The disguised royal had become a dangerously voyeuristic political entity by the time James assumed the throne. Traditional critical perspectives also disregard contemporary theatrical competition. Market demands shaped the repertories. Rivalry among playing companies guaranteed the motif's ongoing vitality. The disguised ruler's presence in a play reassured audiences; it also facilitated a subversive exploration of contemporary social and political issues. Gradually, the disguised ruler's dramatic currency faded, but the figure remained vibrant as an object of parody until the playhouses closed in the 1640s.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409479234

ISBN 13

9781409479239

Italian Reform and English Reformations, c.1535–c.1585

By: Dr M Anne Overell

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Italian Reform and English Reformations, c.1535–c.1585

By: Dr M Anne Overell

This is the first full-scale study of interactions between Italy's religious reform and English reformations, which were notoriously liable to pick up other people's ideas. The book is of fundamental importance for those whose work includes revisionist themes of ambiguity, opportunism and interdependence in sixteenth century religious change. Anne Overell adopts an inclusive approach, retaining within the group of Italian reformers those spirituali who left the church and those who remained within it, and exploring commitment to reform, whether 'humanist', 'protestant' or 'catholic'. In 1547, when the internationalist Archbishop Thomas Cranmer invited foreigners to foster a bolder reformation, the Italians Peter Martyr Vermigli and Bernardino Ochino were the first to arrive in England. The generosity with which they were received caused comment all over Europe: handsome travel expenses, prestigious jobs, congregations which included the great and the good. This was an entry con brio, but the book also casts new light on our understanding of Marian reformation, led by Cardinal Reginald Pole, English by birth but once prominent among Italy's spirituali. When Pole arrived to take his native country back to papal allegiance, he brought with him like-minded men and Italian reform continued to be woven into English history. As the tables turned again at the accession of Elizabeth I, there was further clamour to 'bring back Italians'. Yet Elizabethans had grown cautious and the book's later chapters analyse the reasons why, offering scholars a new perspective on tensions between national and international reformations. Exploring a nexus of contacts in England and in Italy, Anne Overell presents an intriguing connection, sealed by the sufferings of exile and always tempered by political constraints. Here, for the first time, Italian reform is shown as an enduring part of the Elect Nation's literature and myth.

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Page Count

375

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409480151

ISBN 13

9781409480150

The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama

'Whining' Prologues and 'Armed' Epilogues

By: Dr Brian W Schneider

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The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama

'Whining' Prologues and 'Armed' Epilogues

By: Dr Brian W Schneider

Though individual prologues and epilogues have been treated in depth, very little scholarship has been published on early modern framing texts as a whole. The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama fills a gap in the literature by examining the origins of these texts, and investigating their growing importance and influence in the theatre of the period. This topic-led discussion of prologues and epilogues deals with the origins of these texts, the difficulty of definition, and the way in which many prologues and epilogues appear to interact on such subjects as the composition of the theatre audience and the perceived place of women in such an audience. Author Brian Schneider also examines the reasons for, and the evidence leading to, the apparently sudden burgeoning of these texts after the Restoration, when prologues and epilogues grace nearly all the dramas of the time and become a virtual cottage industry of their own. The second section-a comprehensive list of prologues and epilogues-details play titles, playwrights, theatres and theatre companies, first performance and the earliest edition in which the framing text(s) appears. It quotes the first line of the prologue and/or epilogue and uses the printer's signature to denote the page on which the texts can be found. Further information is provided in notes appended to the relevant entry. A final section deals with 'free-floating' and 'free-standing' framing texts that appear in verse collections, manuscripts, and other publications and to which no play can be positively ascribed. Combining original analysis with carefully compiled, comprehensive reference data, The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama provides a genuinely new angle on the drama of early modern England.

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Page Count

344

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409478785

ISBN 13

9781409478782

The Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England

Textual Constructions of a National Identity

By: Dr Roze Hentschell

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The Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England

Textual Constructions of a National Identity

By: Dr Roze Hentschell

Through its exploration of the intersections between the culture of the wool broadcloth industry and the literature of the early modern period, this study contributes to the expanding field of material studies in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. The author argues that it is impossible to comprehend the development of emerging English nationalism during that time period, without considering the culture of the cloth industry. She shows that, reaching far beyond its status as a commodity of production and exchange, that industry was also a locus for organizing sentiments of national solidarity across social and economic divisions. Hentschell looks to textual productions-both imaginative and non-fiction works that often treat the cloth industry with mythic importance-to help explain how cloth came to be a catalyst for nationalism. Each chapter ties a particular mode, such as pastoral, prose romance, travel propaganda, satire, and drama, with a specific issue of the cloth industry, demonstrating the distinct work different literary genres contributed to what the author terms the 'culture of cloth'.

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Page Count

232

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1409475069

ISBN 13

9781409475064

Holinshed's Nation

Ideals, Memory, and Practical Policy in the Chronicles

By: Dr Igor Djordjevic

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Holinshed's Nation

Ideals, Memory, and Practical Policy in the Chronicles

By: Dr Igor Djordjevic

Raphael Holinshed's account of English history from 1377-1485 in the Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland is most well-known as the source of Shakespeare's English history plays. Although the Chronicles are widely read and studied, published scholarly opinion, with a few exceptions, has been limited to the discipline of history. This book explores the historiographic materials of the Chronicles through a literary lens, focusing on how Renaissance men and women read historical texts, framed by these questions: How did Holinshed understand and view history? What were his motives in composing the Chronicles? What did sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English readers learn from the work? Igor Djordjevic explores both the lexical and semantic dimensions as well as lessons in both foreign and domestic policy in the 1577 and 1587 texts and in writers who used or appropriated the Chronicles, including Shakespeare, Daniel, Heywood, and Milton. This study revaluates our understanding of Renaissance chronicle history and the impact of Holinshed on Tudor, Jacobean, and Caroline political discourse; the Chronicles emerge not as a series of rambling, digressive episodes characteristic to a dying medieval genre, but as the preserver of national memory, the teacher of prudent policy, and a builder of the commonwealth ideal.

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Page Count

290

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472459016

ISBN 13

9781472459015

Sovereigns and Subjects in Early Modern Neo-Senecan Drama

Republicanism, Stoicism and Authority

By: Dr Daniel Cadman

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Sovereigns and Subjects in Early Modern Neo-Senecan Drama

Republicanism, Stoicism and Authority

By: Dr Daniel Cadman

In this book, Daniel Cadman examines the development of neo-Senecan drama, also known as ‘closet drama’, during the years 1590–1613. In analyzing how these plays illuminate various aspects of early modern political culture, the book addresses gaps in the scholarship of early modern drama and explores new contexts in relation to more familiar writers, as well as extending the critical debate to include hitherto neglected authors.

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Page Count

233

Publisher

Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1472435206

ISBN 13

9781472435200

Book's by Dr Matthew Steggle

Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England

Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England

Christopher Marlowe and the Failure to Unify

Christopher Marlowe and the Failure to Unify

Staging Authority in Caroline England

Staging Authority in Caroline England

The Disguised Ruler in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries

The Disguised Ruler in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries

Italian Reform and English Reformations, c.1535–c.1585

Italian Reform and English Reformations, c.1535–c.1585

The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama

The Framing Text in Early Modern English Drama

The Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England

The Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England

Holinshed's Nation

Holinshed's Nation

Sovereigns and Subjects in Early Modern Neo-Senecan Drama

Sovereigns and Subjects in Early Modern Neo-Senecan Drama

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