Galatea - (Revels Student Editions) by John Lyly (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Devised as an entertainment for a Tudor monarch, Galatea might be seen, paradoxically, as a parable for our time. Inhabiting a world engaged in a process of change, the characters find themselves locked in a series of transgressive situations that speak directly to contemporary experience and twenty-first-century critical concerns. Same-sex relationships, shifts of authority, and the destabilization of meaning all lend the play a surprising modernity, making it at once the most accessible of Lyly's plays and the one most frequently performed today.

Designed for the student reader, Leah Scragg's edition offers a range of perspectives on the work. An extensive introduction locates the play in the context of the Elizabethan court, opening a window onto a kind of drama very different from that of more familiar sixteenth-century writers, such as Marlowe and Shakespeare. The latter's indebtedness to the play is fully documented, while detailed critical and performance histories allow an insight into the work's susceptibility to reinterpretation.

From the Back Cover

Devised as an entertainment for a Tudor monarch and engaged with matters particularly pertinent to the Elizabethan state, Galatea might be seen, paradoxically, as a parable for our time. Inhabiting a world threatened with inundation and engaged in a process of change, the characters find themselves locked in a series of transgressive situations that speak directly to contemporary experience and twenty-first-century critical concerns. Same-sex relationships, shifts of authority, and the destabilization of meaning all lend the drama a surprising modernity, making it at once the most accessible of Lyly's plays and the one most frequently performed today.

Specifically designed for the student reader, Leah Scragg's edition offers a range of perspectives on the work. An extensive introduction locates the play in the context of the Elizabethan court and the performance of plays by juvenile troupes, opening a window upon a kind of drama very different from that of more familiar sixteenth-century dramatists such as Marlowe and Shakespeare. The latter's indebtedness to the work is fully documented, while detailed critical and performance histories afford an insight into the susceptibility of the work to reinterpretation.

Newly edited from the earliest witness, the quarto of 1592, and richly annotated for the modern reader, this edition allows access to the work of a writer who was a central figure in the cultural life of late sixteenth-century England and is still capable of speaking to audiences today.

Review Quotes

'The play is admirably edited for Revels Student Editions by Leah Scragg. The footnotes are clear and thorough, the introduction lucid and sophisticated, discussing a variety of topics and providing sufficient references to encourage further exploration.'
Jean Wilson, The TLS, May 2013

'One can have no better guide to Galatea than the editor of the present convenient paperback edition, Leah Scragg, the leading Lyly scholar of our time. . . . Her shrewd annotation, and her generous introduction that opens all the wavelengths that the play touches on, with fair-minded accounts of the stage history and of previous criticism, provide a lavish, indeed royal portal to an exquisite courtly comedy.'
Peter Saccio, Around the Globe, issue 54 (summer 2013)

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