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
Results 1-5 of 93
... Parliament, the many-splendored arc of Tudor and Stuart drama came at last to an end—or so we have been told—with a dying fall. Having looked on splendid and undoubted greatness, we are asked to believe that little or nothing happened ...
... Parliament with offers of a personal treaty, on condition that the King in testimony of his future sincerity, would grant the four preliminary bills formerly mentioned. Whilst these two sorts of Commissioners were one day attending the ...
... Parliament took over the control of printing in 1640, it revealed no animus against plays. Despite Milton's scorn for “what despicable creatures our common rimers and play-writes be” (Of Education 405), he knew well enough, when ...
... Parliament in 1629, Charles, at least for a while in the 1630s, was able to enjoy what was to be the best period of his life. These were the so-called “Halcyon dayes” that one encounters in writings of the time (e.g., Carew, “In Answer ...
... Parliament wished to talk of reform and redress. Again the King closed Parliament, but before the year was out, he had to call another. This one began to meet on 3 November 1640, and what remained of it in January 1649 would put Charles ...
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 |