From Playhouse to Printing House

Drama and Authorship in Early Modern England
Erscheinungsjahr 2002
ISBN: 978-0-521-77117-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 36, 314 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 666 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture

This study examines how Shakespeare and his contemporaries made the difficult transition from writing plays for the theatre to publishing them as literary works. Tracing the path from playhouse to printing house, Douglas Brooks analyses how and why certain popular plays found their way into print while many others failed to do so and looks at the role played by the Renaissance book trade in shaping literary reputations. Incorporating many finely observed typographical illustrations, this book focuses on plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster and Beaumont and Fletcher as well as reviewing the complicated publication history of Thomas Heywood's work. Brooks uncovers the continually shifting relationship between theatre and publisher and defines the way in which the concept of authorship changed. His book represents an important contribution to the refiguration of two histories: English Renaissance drama and the early modern book.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brooks, Douglas A.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgements; Prologue 'Thou grewst to govern the whole Stage alone': dramas of authorship in early modern England; 1. 'A toy brought to the Presse': marketing printed drama in early modern London; 2. 'So disfigured with scrapings & blotting out': Sir John Oldcastle and the construction of Shakespeare's authorship; 3. 'If he be at his book, disturb him not': the two Jonson folios of 1616; 4. 'What strange Production is at last displaid': dramatic authorship and the dilemma of collaboration; 5. 'So wronged in beeing publisht': Thomas Heywood and the discourse of perilous publication; Epilogue 'Why not Malevole in folio with vs': the after-birth of the author; Notes; Bibliography; Index.