Thomas Middleton, Renaissance Dramatist - (Renaissance Dramas and Dramatists) by Michelle O'Callaghan (Paperback)

About the Book

This volume brings together aspects of Middleton's craft through a detailed study of representative plays.

Book Synopsis

Thomas Middleton is one of the major English Renaissance dramatists alongside Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson. Middleton continues to fascinate audiences and readers with his black humour, his wry and witty treatment of sexuality, morality, and politics. He is a consummate professional dramatist, experimenting with stagecraft in a manner that combines the visual and the verbal to startling effect. This book brings together these aspects of Middleton's craft through a detailed study of his major plays. Middleton experimented with, and helped to shape, a range of dramatic genres: city comedy, tragicomedy, romance, and revenge tragedy. This new guide analyses in detail how the plays work in terms of the early modern theatre and dramatic genres, as well as elucidating the broader cultural issues shaping the plays. It provides an introduction to critical readings of Middleton's works as well as modern performances, demonstrating how modern critics, producers, dramatists and film makers see Middleton's dark, playful and challenging plays as speaking to our times.Key Features*Ideal student guide with its wide ranging introduction to Middleton's city comedies, tragedies, and collaborative plays and its readings of key texts such as The Roaring Girl, Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Revenger's Tragedy, Women Beware Women, and The Changeling*Uses the most recent edition available, the Oxford Middleton (2007)*Provides background contexts guiding readers through criticism of the plays as well as recent work on early modern theatre and culture*Emphasis on Middleton's stagecraft and its assessment of modern adaptations and film versions of his plays

From the Back Cover

Renaissance Dramatists Series Editor, Sean McEvoy An invaluable resource for all students of Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, each volume in the series provides an authoritative and up-to-date survey of a major dramatist's work with a focus on the plays in performance on stage and screen. Each guide provides: * An informative account of the writer's entire dramatic output, with an emphasis on those plays most frequently studied at university, college and school * Detailed and relevant contextual information on history, culture, politics and biography * A lucid survey of important recent criticism * Original critical readings of the major plays Thomas Middleton, Renaissance Dramatist Michelle O'Callaghan This guide introduces a major English Renaissance dramatist and contemporary of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson, via his treatment of sexuality, morality and politics as well as his stagecraft. The book analyses how each of Middleton's plays work in terms of the early modern theatre and dramatic genres, as well as exploring the broader cultural issues shaping the plays. It introduces critical responses to Middleton's works as well as modern performances, demonstrating how modern critics, producers, dramatists and film makers see Middleton's dark, playful and challenging plays as speaking to our times. Key Features * Provides wide coverage of Middleton's city comedies, tragedies, and collaborative plays and readings of The Roaring Girl, Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Revenger's Tragedy, Women Beware Women, and The Changeling *Uses the most recent edition available, the Oxford Middleton (2007) *Guides the reader through criticism of the plays as well as recent work on early modern theatre and culture *Emphasis on Middleton's stagecraft and on modern adaptations and film versions of his plays Michelle O'Callaghan is Reader in Early Modern Literature in the Department of English and American Literature at the University of

About the Author

Michelle O'Callaghan is Reader in Early Modern Literature in the Department of English and American Literature at the University of Reading. She is the author of The English Wits: Literature and Sociability in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and The 'Shepheards Nation': Jacobean Spenserians and early Stuart political culture (Oxford University Press, 2000), and has published essays on early modern literature and politics, sociability, travel, and ghosts.