This stimulating collection of essays approaches the poetic drama’s of Shakespeare’s contemporaries through many critical modes – focusing on their language, imagery, staging, characterizations, and the basic philosophical perspectives which shaped the vision of these playwrights. 

          The diversity of critical methods is indicative of the complexity and richness of Elizabethan drama, a richness this volume helps make available to the modern reader. Its introductory essay supplies an over-all orientation to the Elizabethan and Jacobean theater, and is followed by eighteen contributions by distinguished scholars, providing a thorough coverage of this fascinating period. Among the plays discussed are those of Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Chapman and Webster, and included is a perceptive evaluation of Philip Massinger by T. S. Eliot.

CONTENTS:

1. Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama
2. The Shackling of Accidents: A Study of Elizabethan Tragedy
3. Lyly
4. "The Spanish Tragedy"
5. The Idea of History in Marlowe’s "Tamburlaine"
6. Marlowe’s Heroes
7. The Precarious Balance of John Marston
8. Chapman and the Nature of Man
9. Tradition and Ben Jonson
10. Unifying Symbols in the Comedy of Ben Jonson
11. The Moral Vison of Ben Jonson’s Tragedy
12. "The Revenger’s Tragedy" and the Morality Tradition
13. The Function of Imagery in Webster
14. The "Impure Art" of John Webster
15. Beaumont and Fletcher: Jacobean Absolutists
16. Thomas Middleton
17. The Tragedy of Damnation
18. Philip Massinger
19. Ford’s Tragic Perspective