Publisher's Synopsis
Encyclopaedia of Critical English Drama is a collection of introductory essays on individual plays from the early modern period. These essays cover vital perspectives in current cultural studies such as issues in race, class, gender, sexuality and colonialism as well as topics in intellectual history like humanism, science, the law, and reformation theology, and in the dramatic genre. When compiling a list of suggested readings for a university course on English Renaissance drama, what are the sorts of things one should look for? Ideally, readings should be scholarly in content as well as form, providing a model for students writing their own essays. Readings should also be informed by current critical trends and debates, whilst remaining succinct and accessible to a student readership. Assessed in these terms, Early Modern English Drama: A Critical Companion offers a valuable collection that will no doubt find its way on to university reading lists. First chapter focuses on drama & demigods. The theories of kingship that prevailed during Shakespeare's lifetime both in England and on the Continent were predicated on medieval theology, as well as practical and military prowess. Second chapter proposes a new way to explore Anglo-Judeo-Islamic relations in early modern drama (EMD): to focus on the way food, drink, and the humoral body materializes on stage as
