Interludes and early modern society : : studies in gender, power and theatricality / / edited by Peter Happé and Wim Hüsken.

• Superior document: Ludus, 9
• TeilnehmendeR: Happé, Peter.; Hüsken, Wim N. M.
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam ;, New York : : Rodopi,, 2007.
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Language: English
• Series: Ludus 9.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (380 pages) :; illustrations.

The essays in this collection, contributed by an internationally distinguished group of scholars, bring up to date many aspects of the criticism of the English Interludes. The development of these plays was a significant part of the history of the growth of English drama in the sixteenth century to the extent that they may be regarded as its main stream. Arising by means of a felicitous combination of the development of printing and the growth of a professional theatre, plays of this type quickly became a forum for the presentation and exploration of many contemporary themes. They became a useful means of disseminating a wide variety of opinions and public concerns as well as exhibiting at times the intellectual brilliance of the Renaissance. The essays here are concentrated upon power, particularly in its religious and political aspects, gender and theatricality. The political and religious upheavals of the Reformation under the Tudor monarchy form a background as well as a focus at times. In particular the position of women in sixteenth-century society is examined in essays on several plays. There is also discussion of the development of theatrical techniques as playwrights worked closely with small acting companies to reach a wide audience ranging from the royal court to the common streets. This was achieved, as a number of essays make clear, through a variety of entertaining theatrical devices.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction / Peter Happé -- Complicity and Hierarchy: A Tentative Definition of the Interlude Genus / Jean-Paul Debax -- Maidens and Matrons: The Theatricality of Gender in the Tudor Interludes / Lynn Forest-Hill -- Skelton’s Magnyfycence: Theatre, Poetry, Influence / Peter Happé -- Comic Treatment of Tragic Character in Godly Queen Hester / Mike Pincombe -- Powerful Obedience: Godly Queen Hester and Katherine of Aragon / Janette Dillon -- Feminine Singularity: The Representation of Young Women in Some Early Tudor Interludes / Bob Godfrey -- Wit to Woo: The Wit Interludes / David Mills -- Reforming Sovereignty: John Bale and Tragic Drama / Dermot Cavanagh -- Flytyng in the Face of Convention: Protest and Innovation in Lindsay’s Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis / Greg Walker -- Working Towards a Reformed Identity in Lindsay’s Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis / John J. McGavin -- The Pammachius Affair at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1545 / Paul Whitfield White -- Impatient Poverty: The Intertextual Game of Satire / Roberta Mullini -- Sound City Jests and Country Pretty Jests: Jack Juggler and Gammer Gurton’s Needle / Peter Thomson -- Legitimacy, Ceremony and Drama: Mary Tudor’s Coronation and Respublica / Alice Hunt -- Staging the Reformation: Power and Theatricality in the Plays of William Wager / David Bevington.