Drama and the Market in the Age of Shakespeare

Abstract

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.

The Dutch Courtesan and 'The Soul of Lively Action'

“…Marston, with The Dutch Courtesan, borrows from the psychomachia tradition of the Moralities in keeping his female characters cosmetically distinct, associating with the play's wife -aptly named Beatrice, or 'one who blesses' -chastity, faithfulness, unselfish love, and purity, and with Franceschina, the Dutch Courtesan, libido, betrayal, self-interest, and disease. 19 Examples could easily be multiplied.…”

Women, Marriage, Property and Law: Contextualizing <i>The Witch of Edmonton</i>

“…16 Many scholars have noted the contrast between the covetous economic motivations depicted in Jacobean (and some late Elizabethan) city comedies and the simpler and more honest economic values they overlapped with and replaced. 17 In that sense the greed exhibited by the Thorneys is unremarkable. What is new in their pursuit of financial advantage through immoral means is both men's willingness to separate financial credit from moral credit, presaging the distinct meanings of the word 'credit' that we use today.…”

‘[A]dore my topless villainy’: Metatheatrical Rivalry in John Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge

“…Early modern theatre and London's commercial market were mutually formative, with the rise of theatre as a commercial enterprise coinciding with the beginnings of 'institutionalized capitalism' in London. 27 This was a period when playhouses were 'frequently characterized, by detractors and supporters alike, as markets in miniature'. 28 Janet Clare argues persuasively that reading intertextually and with an eye toward the external pressures of theatrical rivalry and marketplace competition between playwrights allows for fresh insight into the textual variations of different printed versions of Hamlet.…”