Strangeness in Jacobean Drama

Introduction

“…While the term is surprisingly -perhaps bewilderingly -flexible, it is not altogether indefinable: it signifies a combination of abstract and literal thought -particularly when used to describe an event, visual manifestation, or figure; it is almost always highly moralised yet contains paradoxical value judgements -of attraction and repulsion, power and impotence, admonition and disapproval; it connotes national, geographical, emotional, and sexual distance -what might be termed a mixture of both longing and belonging; and it is highly euphemistic, able to express indirectly and to masquerade, for instance, as a visual account without providing any physical detail at all. 11 Davies lists many important aspects of strangeness in Jacobean drama that are also applicable to early Stuart drama and other texts in general. The sprawling syntax of his attempt at an inclusive definition of strangeness indicates the multifaceted and ultimately elusive character of strangeness.…”