Exploring the hybrid culture of early modern England and Europe, this multidisciplinary volume examines diverse interactions among nations and language communities. It highlights unique encounters beyond Europe, featuring neo-Latin poetry, Spanish nun plays from the New World, and royal portraits used in diplomacy. Additionally, it delves into the experiences of traveling companions in the Ottoman Empire, presenting fresh research that illuminates the complexities of cultural exchanges during this vibrant period.
Focusing on the evolution of Renaissance romance, the book explores its shift from being aimed at female readers to being authored by women. Helen Hackett analyzes a variety of writers, including Lyly, Rich, Greene, Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare, leading to an in-depth look at Lady Mary Wroth's groundbreaking work, Urania. The study highlights the changing depictions of female heroism and self-identity, particularly how traditional saintly roles were adapted for secular and erotic contexts.
Exploring the imagined interactions between William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I, this book delves into centuries of artistic and literary interpretations of their potential meetings. It examines the cultural significance of both figures and how their legacies have become intertwined in British and American history. Through a detailed analysis, the author uncovers the motivations behind these mythologized encounters and their impact on literature and art.
Shakespeare is a towering presence in English and indeed global culture. Yet considered alongside his contemporaries he was not an isolated phenomenon, but the product of a period of astonishing creative fertility. This was an age when new media - popular drama and print - were seized upon avidly and inventively by a generation of exceptionally talented writers. In her sparkling new book, Helen Hackett explores the historical contexts of English Renaissance drama by situating it in the wider history of ideas. She traces the origins of Renaissance theatre in communal religious drama, civic pageantry and court entertainment and vividly describes the playing conditions of Elizabethan and Jacobean playhouses. Examining Marlowe, Shakespeare and Jonson in turn, the author assesses the distinctive contribution made by each playwright to the creation of English drama. She then turns to revenge tragedy, with its gothic poetry of sex and death; city comedy, domestic tragedy and tragicomedy; and gender and drama, with female roles played by boy actors in commercial playhouses while women participated in drama at court and elsewhere. The book places Renaissance drama in the exciting and vibrant cosmopolitanism of sixteenth-century London.
