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 6-10 of 54
... actors possessed of wit, skill, and charm. Since we are focusing here mainly on texts, it will be well to bear in mind, therefore, that often what strikes us as textual weakness might well be concealed in a skillfully managed rush of ...
... of Histrio-mastix announces that “the penning, acting, and frequenting of Stage-playes, are unlawfull, infamous and misbeseeming Christians.” the spirit, and take away your savour of heavenly matters” I 2 W I N T E R F R U I T.
... acting not as an extravagant and narrowly “Cavalier' plaything but as an important focus and voice for anxieties and dissent existing in tension within the court. The writers ... perceive the injustice, instability and unpopularity of ...
... Actors Remonstrance (1643), which speaks of the actors as “friends, young Gentlemen, that used to feast and frolick ... at Tavernes” (6). We find it in the words of Edmund Gayton, who recorded in 1654 how interested auditors might invite ...
... actors then proceeded to use their playing skills yet again to comment on a related matter. The players, we are told, had chosen to revive a new old Play, called The Cardinal/s conspira/c/ie, whom they brought upon the stage in as great ...
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 |