Constructing the Canon of Early Modern Drama
- Author: Jeremy Lopez, University of Toronto
- Date Published: October 2017
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781316627464
Paperback
Other available formats:
Hardback, eBook
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available for inspection. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an inspection copy. To register your interest please contact asiamktg@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.
-
For one hundred years the drama of Shakespeare's contemporaries has been consistently represented in anthologies, edited texts, and the critical tradition by a familiar group of about two dozen plays running from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy to Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore by way of Dekker, Jonson, Middleton and Webster. How was this canon created, and what ideological and institutional functions does it serve? What preceded it, and is it possible for it to become something else? Jeremy Lopez takes up these questions by tracing a history of anthologies of 'non-Shakespearean' drama from Robert Dodsley's Select Collection of Old Plays (1744) through those recently published by Blackwell, Norton, and Routledge. Containing dozens of short, provocative readings of unfamiliar plays, this book will benefit those who seek a broader sense of the period's dazzling array of forms.
Read more- Presents a history of the early modern dramatic canon as it has evolved since the eighteenth century and provides historical context for regularly used anthologies
- Contains a large number of short, provocative new readings of unfamiliar plays, giving those interested in unfamiliar or non-canonical works a starting point for plays with limited or no critical tradition
- Develops a theory of dramatic form through which the canon of early modern drama might be expanded, and creates a productive and useful critical vocabulary that embraces the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries simultaneously rather than in opposition
Reviews & endorsements
'This is a remarkable book: confidently and wittily written, exhaustively and widely researched, timely, provocative, enlightening and highly original. The strength of Lopez's argument is that he resists the impulse to shape his own anthology, offering instead a history and a method of critical enquiry and appreciation that completely destabilise current practice.' Richard Cave, Royal Holloway, University of London
See more reviews'By moving beyond a Shakespeare-based repertoire, Lopez is taking a look at which plays were considered better than others, what kind of criteria were used in the making of those judgements, and especially how the works selected to exemplify the early modern era might change.' Amy Arden, Folger Magazine
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: October 2017
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781316627464
- length: 243 pages
- dimensions: 230 x 153 x 18 mm
- weight: 0.37kg
- contains: 1 b/w illus.
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Part I. Early Modern Dramatic Canons: Origins:
1. Excluding Shakespeare
2. Trollope's Dilke
3. What is an anthology? (Part 1)
4. Collecting early modern drama, 1744 to the present
5. Ejecta
6. How to use this book
7. Table of contents
8. Autogenesis: The Custom of The Country (Part 1)
9. Endless tragedy
10. Negative canon
Attachments:
11. Lamb in the library
12. Dodsley's Hog
13. Blunt instrument
14. Fragments
15. Comedy and tragedy
16. The Mermaid series
17. The Keltie exception
18. The ties that bind: The Custom of The Country (Part 2)
19. Hints of designs
20. What is an anthology? (Part 2)
Paradoxes:
21. Introductory
22. Bullen's Nero
23. Collier's Reed's Dodsley
24. Beaumont our contemporary
25. History in disguise
26. The aesthetic under erasure
27. The turn of the corkscrew
28. Return of the repressed: The Custom of The Country (Part 3)
29. The Changeling
30. The greatness of English Renaissance drama
Interlude: reading a bad play: The Fair Maid of Bristow
Part II. Early Modern Dramatic Forms: Bifurcation:
31. The Bowers Dekker
32. Fletcher's Shakespeare
33. Early modern dramatic form
34. The Bloody Brother
35. Early modern dramatic forms
36. What is an anthology? (Part 3)
37. Apples and oranges
38. The sleepwalker: Northward Ho (Part 1)
39. The war in The Shoemaker's Holiday
40. The Holaday Chapman
Opposition:
41. Laws of canon
42. Rowley's sow
43. Form in collaboration
44. Love's Labors Won
45. 'A sort of dramatic monster'
46. What should an anthology be?
47. The surviving image
48. Other voices: Northward Ho (Part 2)
49. Disappearing act
50. Anon., anon
Inheritance:
51. Voluminous Heywood
52. Ford's Webster
53. Labored forms
54. The Triumph of Time
55. Moral Massinger
56. No heir
57. Apocalypse now
58. Bedlam at Ware: Northward Ho (Part 3)
59. Modern times
60. Principles of selection and exclusion
Afterword
List of primary-text editions
Bibliography.
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email lecturers@cambridge.org
Register Sign in» Proceed
You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.
Continue ×Are you sure you want to delete your account?
This cannot be undone.
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.
×