Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England: Ten Case Studies (Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama)

Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England: Ten Case Studies (Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama)

by Matthew Steggle (Author)

Synopsis

This book establishes new information about the likely content of ten lost plays from the period 1580-1642. These plays' authors include Nashe, Heywood, and Dekker; and the plays themselves connect in direct ways to some of the most canonical dramas of English literature, including Hamlet, King Lear, The Changeling, and The Duchess of Malfi. The lost plays in question are: Terminus & Non Terminus (1586-8); Richard the Confessor (1593); Cutlack (1594); Bellendon (1594); Truth's Supplication to Candlelight (1600); Albere Galles (1602); Henry the Una (c. 1619); The Angel King (1624); The Duchess of Fernandina (c. 1630-42); and The Cardinal's Conspiracy (bef. 1639). From this list of bare titles, it is argued, can be reconstructed comedies, tragedies, and histories, whose leading characters included a saint, a robber, a Medici duchess, an impotent king, at least one pope, and an angel. In each case, newly-available digital research resources make it possible to interrogate the title and to identify the play's subject-matter, analogues, and likely genre. But these concrete examples raise wider theoretical problems: What is a lost play? What can, and cannot, be said about objects in this problematic category? Known lost plays from the early modern commercial theatre outnumber extant plays from that theatre: but how, in practice, can one investigate them? This book offers an innovative theoretical and practical frame for such work, putting digital humanities into action in the emerging field of lost play studies.

$192.77

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 212
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 28 Nov 2015

ISBN 10: 1409444147
ISBN 13: 9781409444145

Media Reviews
'Digital Humanities and the Lost Drama of Early Modern England: Ten Case Studies is an exciting, innovative and smartly executed scholarly project. Each case study illuminates not only the lost play under discussion but also its contribution to the landscape of early modern drama including repertorial commerce, the interaction among dramatists, and Shakespeare's place in regard to the lost play.' Roslyn L. Knutson, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, USA
Author Bio
Matthew Steggle is Professor of English at Sheffield Hallam University, UK.