This highly acclaimed full-scale account of Restoration drama vividly chronicles the drama's changing patterns decade-by-decade from 1660 to 1710. Providing a detailed, chronological survey of some five hundred plays, Hume traces the emergence of numerous dramatic modes, studies their interaction and mutual influence, and fully explores the diversity of the plays as they reflect the fads and fashions of a small, highly competitive theater world constantly undergoing political and social change.
This book introduces students to drama from the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 to the early 18th Century. Susan Owen offers representative coverage of new forms of drama in this period, and of ways in which old forms are altered. Her study covers heroic drama, comedy, tragedy, tragi-comedy, and Shakespeare adaptations, by focusing on specific 'dramatic highlights' and giving close reading of particular plays.
One-stop resource offering complete textbook for courses in seventeenth-century literature - progressing from introductory topics through to overviews of current research.
The Ashgate Research Companion to Henry Purcell provides a comprehensive and authoritative review of current research into Purcell and the environment of Restoration music, with contributions from leading experts in the field. Seen from the perspective of modern, interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship, the companion allows the reader to develop a rounded view of the environment in which Purcell lived, the people with whom he worked, the social conditions that influenced his activities, and the ways in which the modern perception of him has been affected by reception of his music after his death. In this sense the contributions do not privilege the individual over the environment: rather, they use the modern reader's familiarity with Purcell's music as a gateway into the broader Restoration world. Topics include a reassessment of our understanding of Purcell's sources and the transmission of his music; new ways of approaching the study of his creative methods; performance practice; the multi-faceted theatre environment in which his work was focused in the last five years of his life; the importance of the political and social contexts of late seventeenth-century England; and the ways in which the performance history and reception of his music have influenced modern appreciation of the composer. The book will be essential reading for anyone studying the music and culture of the seventeenth century.
The early Stuart funeral elegy was a copious and digressive genre, and exceptional deaths pressed elegists to stretch beyond the usual rhetoric of grief and commemoration. This book engages in a broad reading of the period’s rich trove of funeral elegies, in both manuscript and print, and by poets ranging from the canonical to the anonymous. The book stands apart from earlier studies by its greater focus upon the subjects of funeral elegies (rather than the poets), and how the particular circumstances of death and the immediate contexts affected the poetic response. Individual deaths are understood in relation to each other and other prominent events of the time. While the book covers the period 1603 to 1640, the 1620s stand out as a tumultuous decade in which the genre most fully engaged in matters of political controversy and satire.
Building on the strength of Keith Walker’s acclaimed The Poems of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1984), leading scholar Nicholas Fisher presents a thoroughly revised and updated edition of the work of one the greatest Restoration wits. Includes the text of Lucina’s Rape, Rochester’s adaptation of Fletcher’s revenge tragedy Valentinian, in a text that readily identifies Rochester’s revisions Presents the poems in versions that were current during Rochester’s lifetime, allowing the reader to experience the poems as Rochester’s contemporaries did Incorporates insights and discoveries made over the last twenty-five years and texts of manuscripts that previously were unavailable for study
