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Time and again, early modern plays show people at work: shoemaking, grave-digging, and professional acting are just some of the forms of labour that theatregoers could have seen depicted on stage in 1599 and 1600. Tom Rutter demonstrates how such representations were shaped by the theatre's own problematic relationship with work: actors earned their living through playing, a practice that many considered idle and illegitimate, while plays were criticised for enticing servants and apprentices from their labour. As a result, the drama of Shakespeare's time became the focal point of wider debates over what counted as work, who should have to do it, and how it should be valued. This book describes changing beliefs about work in the sixteenth century, and shows how different ways of conceptualising the work of the governing class inform Shakespeare's histories. It identifies important contrasts between plays written for the adult and child repertories.

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Providing a comprehensive survey of Christopher Marlowe's literary career, this Introduction presents an approachable account of the life, works and influence of the groundbreaking Elizabethan dramatist and poet. It includes in-depth discussions of all of Marlowe's plays, stressing what was new and revolutionary about them as well as how they made use of existing dramatic models. Marlowe's poems and translations, sometimes marginalised in discussions of his work, are analysed to emphasise their literary importance and political resonances. The book presents a balanced discussion of Marlowe's turbulent life and considers his afterlives: the influence of his work on other writers and examples of how his plays have been performed. In addition to introducing the reader to the historical and religious contexts within which Marlowe wrote, the Introduction stresses the qualities that continue to make his work fascinating: intellectual range, radical irony and an awareness of the dangerously compelling power of theatre.