Winter Fruit: English Drama, 1642-1660University Press of Kentucky, 2014 M10 17 - 472 pages Probably the most blighted period in the history of English drama was the time of the Civil Wars, Commonwealth, and Protectorate. With the theaters closed, the country at war, the throne in fatal decline, and the powers of Parliament and Cromwell growing greater, the received wisdom has been that drama in England largely withered and died. Throughout the official hiatus in playing, he shows, dramas continued to be composed, translated, transmuted, published, bought, read, and even covertly acted. Furthermore, the tendency of drama to become interestingly topical and political grew more pronounced. In illuminating one of the least understood periods in English literary history, Randall's study not only encompasses a large amount of dramatic and historical material but also takes into account much of the scholarship published in recent decades. Winter Fruit is a major interpretive work in literary and social history. |
From inside the book
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... (Davenant's Britannia Triumphans) “for his own praise, upon that day, which by Divine Institution was set apart for the praise of our Redeemer” (13–14, 25). And after Charles was beheaded, at least one writer was moved to write of the ...
... Davenant's great masque called Salmacida Spolia conveyed the official royal image. Whatever “malicious Fury” (B1 r) might threaten, Davenant writes, the land will be guided by “a secret power,” namely, the wisdom of Philogenes (“Lover ...
... Davenant's crafting of a musical form of dramatic entertainment that was officially acceptable in 1656 and nowadays is generally held to constitute the founding of English opera. By April 1656, in fact, it appears that besides Davenant's ...
... Davenant's Siege of Rhodes (1656) or to the king in Knightley's version of Alfrede (1659). Various kinds of pressure— including love, honor, friendship, faith, and pride—serve to elicit manifestations of nobility in various good ...
... Davenant's Salmacida Spolia (1640), in which Queen Henrietta Maria gave what was to prove the most famous Amazonian performance of the prewar period. Instead of a warrior woman, however, Henrietta Maria played in this masque a ...
Contents
1 | |
16 | |
37 | |
51 | |
66 | |
6 The Famous Tragedy of Charles I | 95 |
7 AngloTyrannus | 117 |
8 Shows Motions and Drolls | 140 |
12 Fruits of Seasons Gone | 229 |
13 Tragedies | 248 |
14 Comedies | 275 |
15 The Cavendish Phenomenon | 313 |
16 Tragicomedies | 337 |
17 The Rising Sun | 368 |
Appendixes | 381 |
Works Cited | 391 |
9 Mungrell Masques and Their Kin | 157 |
10 The Persistence of Pastoral | 184 |
11 The Craft of Translation | 208 |
Index | 421 |