This course will introduce you to the larger landscape of English drama by playwrights other than Shakespeare. In general, we’ll examine these plays as they relate to the various social and political contexts in which they were produced. In doing so, we will study the lives and reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England as well as their relationship to the English Playhouse as an institution. Reading the drama written and produced during their reigns––a body of work that is equally rich but often quite different from what Shakespeare wrote––we’ll get a sense of a distinctly bold brand of English stagecraft. These other dramatists may be strangers to you initially, but by the end of the semester, you may find they seem even stranger as they become more familiar.

Our reading list will include Christopher Marlowe’s daring over-reacher, Tamburlaine The Great, Ben Jonson’s pointed smack-down of the wealthy and corrupt, Volpone; John Webster’s creepy Duchess of Malfi; Francis Beaumont’s odd and downright silly Knight of the Burning Pestle, Thomas Dekker’s citizen/artisan tribute, The Shoemaker’s Holiday, and his collaboration with Middleton, the tobacco-smoking, pants-wearing, Roaring Girl. In addition to these works, each student in the class will have the opportunity to read literary criticism of these plays, another play by these authors, or a play written by an additional playwright, including John Fletcher, Lady Mary Wroth, Elizabeth Cary, or Jane Cavendish and Elizabeth Brackley.

In our exploration of these works, we will consider the troublesome and ever-expanding list we know as the “literary canon,” the importance of editing practices with early modern plays, and the extent to which all drama of the time shared the literary aesthetics we associate with Shakespeare.