Greg Walker provides a new account of the relationship between politics and drama in the turbulent period from the accession of Henry VIII to the reign of Elizabeth I. Building on ideas first developed in Plays of Persuasion (1991), he focuses on political drama in both England and Scotland, exploring the complex relationships among politics, court culture and dramatic composition, performance and publication. This interdisciplinary analysis will find a market among Tudor historians as well as students of medieval and Renaissance drama.
Reviews
'Walker's book painstakingly reconstructs the circumstances of performance of a number of Tudor plays (by Heywood, Lindsay, and Udall) and concludes with a detailed account of the marital politics of Gorboduc, the first five-act verse tragedy in English ... [his] readings are compelling and subtle.' The Times Literary Supplement