Douglas Bruster's provocative study of English Renaissance drama explores its links with Elizabethan and Jacobean economy and society, looking at the status of playwrights such as Shakespeare and the establishment of commercial theatres. He identifies in the drama a materialist vision which has its origins in the climate of uncertainty engendered by the rapidly expanding economy of London. His examples range from the economic importance of cuckoldry to the role of stage props as commodities, and the commercial significance of the Troy story in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, and he offers new ways of reading English Renaissance drama, by returning the theatre and the plays performed there, to its basis in the material world.
- ISBN13 9780521607063
- Publish Date 27 January 2005 (first published 27 November 1992)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 6 June 2022
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Cambridge University Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 184
- Language English