Drama and Politics in the English Civil War

Abstract

In 1642 an ordinance closed the theatres of England. Critics and historians have assumed that the edict was to be firm and inviolate. Susan Wiseman challenges this assumption and argues that the period 1640 to 1660 was not a gap in the production and performance of drama nor a blank space between 'Renaissance drama' and the 'Restoration stage'. Rather, throughout the period, writers focused instead on a range of dramas with political perspectives, from republican to royalist. This group included the short pamphlet dramas of the 1640s and the texts produced by the writers of the 1650s, such as William Davenant, Margaret Cavendish and James Shirley. In analysing the diverse forms of dramatic production of the 1640s and 1650s, Wiseman reveals the political and generic diversity produced by the changes in dramatic production, and offers insights into the theatre of the Civil War.

Political Polemics and the Question of Gender Instability in Elkanah Settle's The Female Prelate

“…Puritan leaders wanted to establish a new lifestyle that eliminated all "corruptive" pleasures of monarchical regimes. Under Puritan rule, restrictions were imposed on "unfruitful" pastime activities such as the theatre, and only certain "virtuous" genres of art, such as opera performances, were permitted (Wiseman, 1998). Furthermore, Puritan legislators in Parliament attempted to suppress what they perceived as deviant sexual behavior.…”

Thomas Higgons’s “The Dismal Tempest”: an unpublished seventeenth-century play fragment

“…5 Susan Wiseman asserts that in mid-century England, particularly during Cromwell's Protectorate, "tragicomic plays and pastoral entertainments were attempting to articulate questions of the relationship between power and right". 6 "The Dismal Tempest" is another example of an author drawing on the genres of tragicomedy and pastoral to consider power, and, in this case, Divine Right. Considering a later date of composition, however, the play could have been influenced by Higgons's European trip of 1669, described in his unpublished diary.…”