www.medievalbookshop.co.uk
Bargain books on the Middle Ages and all related subjects
Contact by email or post & phone
Benjamin Griffin.
Playing the Past: Approaches to English Historical Drama, 1385-1600.
Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001.
ISBN 0859916154.
Hardback, stitch bound; issued without dustjacket.
159x240x21mm.
xiii,193pp.
English.
Unused bargain.This item £8.50
[Publisher's price £50.00/$75.00]
490g.
Two overlapping areas of English historical drama are examined in this study. The first is the large group of plays dramatising the lives of powerful people in the past of the English nation (native-subject drama), from the end of the fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth, and the second is the select group of these plays produced in the 1580s, at the height of their flourishing. Griffin charts the development of historical drama from the Mass and Saint plays on Thomas Becket, through the Reformation and its legacy, to the later history plays, showing that the history play is neither Shakespeare's nor an Elizabethan invention, but has its roots in medieval drama. The use made by Shakespeare and Marlowe of the various types of historical drama - the sacrificial, the festive and the formless genealogical - is discussed, and the decline of the history play examined, reviewing and amending critical explanations of the extinction of the genre.
Related pages on this site: | medieval drama | Shakespeare |
See the "book descriptions" page for explanations of the criteria used in this listing.
Return to used books index page
Use these scrollbars to navigate the attic...
You need javascript switched on for these scrollbars to work. If they don't, there's a full set of links at the bottom of this page.
Primary sources anthologies | anononymous | facsimile | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Secondary sources journals & partworks | author unknown | exhibition guides & ephemera | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | Mc | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z
Reference books Reference index | general reference | bibliographies | biographical dictionaries | catalogues: auctions | catalogues: exhibitions | catalogues: museums & collections | chronology & dating | genealogy & heraldry | guides & gazetteers | lexical: concordances, dictionaries, glossaries | maps & atlases | medievalism | name & place-name studies | pass notes & study guides | numismatics
Medievalism main page | general non-fiction | reference books | biography & autobiography | travelogues | arcana | folklore | arts and crafts | kid's books | fiction | poetry | drama | humour
Other stuff browse by subject | browse by publisher | browse by series | gift books | kids' stuff | incomplete sets | shop returns | signed copies | unused bargains | useful non-medieval | new books (with Amazon links)
Site search
(Fluid Dynamics)
medievalbookshop
Other frequently asked questions
Books
How to find what you're looking for
How the book descriptions work
Information pages
The small print