Thomas Middleton in Context

Description

The redefinition of the Thomas Middleton canon has led to an explosion of interest in this quintessential Jacobean. Middleton's best-known plays, such as Women Beware Women and The Changeling, are now staged, filmed and rewritten for modern audiences. But Middleton also wrote religious poetry, satires, historical allegory, prose and less familiar plays, collaborating frequently, even with Shakespeare. His works are rooted in his historical and cultural environment, from the Overbury scandal to the fall of the boys' companies. Here, experts in literature, theatre, history, law and religion analyze the complex contexts of Middleton's works, clarifying debates over his religious and political affiliations. Divided into sections presenting new interpretations of the world in which Middleton wrote - as a Londoner, citizen, dramatist and early modern man - and concluding with a section on performance history, the essays cover the full range of his works, from the frequently performed to the newest attributions.

Suzanne Gossett is Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago. She has edited Middleton's A Fair Quarrel for the Oxford Middleton, Shakespeare and Wilkins' Pericles for the Arden Shakespeare and Beaumont and Fletcher's Philaster for Arden Early Modern Drama. She is a General Editor of Arden Early Modern Drama and, with Gordon McMullan, General Textual Editor for the Norton Shakespeare 3.

".. is a fine collection, its thirty-eight short, well-illustrated chapters giving a variety of new perspectives." -- Studies in English Literature