3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

What was early modern drama and who was it for? How did it register, and, occasionally, transform and influence the political, religious, racial, sexual and economic frameworks and institutional realities that surrounded the playhouses? This course draws upon fresh scholarship in dramatic history and criticism to widen the conversation about early modern drama beyond the frame of Shakespeare’s development and influence. We will read newly edited plays by Thomas Preston, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, George Chapman, Philip Massinger, John Webster, John Fletcher, Elizabeth Cary and multiple anonymous authors.