Drama and the market in the age of Shakespeare

Resource Information

The work Drama and the market in the age of Shakespeare represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Drama and the market in the age of Shakespeare

Statement of responsibility

Douglas Bruster

Creator

• Bruster, Douglas

Subject

• Dramatists, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Economic conditions
• Economics in literature
• English drama -- 17th century -- History and criticism
• English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600 -- History and criticism
• Literature and society -- England
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
• Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Knowledge | Economics
• Theater -- England -- Economic aspects
• Drama -- Economic aspects -- England

Language

eng

Summary

Douglas Bruster's provocative study of English Renaissance drama explores its links with Elizabethan and Jacobean economy and society, looking at the professional status of playwrights such as Shakespeare, and the establishment of commercial theaters. Stressing that playhouses were, first and foremost, places of business, he argues that a significant proportion of the drama's practical energy went toward understanding the material conditions that maintained its existence. He sees this impetus as part of a 'materialist vision' which has its origins in the climate of uncertainty engendered by a rapidly expanding London and its burgeoning market. Exploring, for example, the economic importance of the cuckold theme, the role taken by stage objects as commodities, and the commercial significance of the Troy story as staged in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Bruster returns the theater and the plays performed there to their basis in the material world. In doing so, he offers new ways of reading the drama of Renaissance England

Member of

• Cambridge studies in Renaissance literature and culture, 1

Cataloging source

DLC

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Series statement

Cambridge studies in Renaissance literature and culture

Series volume

1