Breaking Boundaries: Politics and Play in the Drama of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

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Ashgate, 1998 - Drama - 160 pages
The period 1585-1649 was rich in innovative drama which challenged the boundaries between social, political and cultural activities of various kinds. In this book, Molly Smith examines ways in which texts by Renaissance authors reflect, question and influence their society's ideological concerns. In the drama of Kyd, Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Middleton, Massinger and Ford, she identifies the simultaneously serious and playful appropriation of popular cultural practices, an appropriation which is expertly reversed by authorities in the political drama of Charles I's public trial and execution in 1649. This compelling interpretation of Renaissance drama will prove of value to students of literature and social history.

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Contents

spectacles of death and dying
17
Renaissance notions of alterity
41
exploring the boundaries
67
Copyright

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