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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... observes that “Those who have encountered such images as 'the North,' winter, storms, and battle again and again in unquestioned political contexts will likely think the political reading inevitable” (186). and contextual approach, I ...
... observe also that when Parliament took over the control of printing in 1640, it revealed no animus against plays ... observes that “Prynne evidently wishes both to exploit the possibilities for order inherent in such an arrangement ...
... observes that “in the middle years of the century ... one finds, not a sharp division into opposing 'sides,' but a series of fluctuating alliances of groups of persons that only at crucial moments—such as the outbreak of war or the ...
... observes that, later on, “[h]owever much the civil war led to an exaggerated impression of England's lost happiness, the sense of her unique peace had been well established before the outbreak of armed conflict. Charles and his ...
... observes, Poore Princes, how are they mis-led, While they, whose sacred office 'tis to bring Kings to obey their God, and men their King, By these mysterious linkes to fixe and tye Them to the foot-stoole of the Deity: Even by these men ...
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 |