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Theatrical Cultures in Early Modern England

Module description

Theatrical Cultures in Early Modern England tracks the development of English drama from the Elizabethan period through to the Civil War. Through the module’s texts runs a strong thematic concern with how the drama responds to immigration and the beginnings of colonial expansion and the slave trade, which we explore alongside a focus on theatre history, dramatic genres and fashions, production contexts and technical/architectural developments. You will learn about the distinct theatrical cultures of the Elizabethan public stages and Inns of Court, and private performances at court and in indoor venues in Stuart England. The module’s texts will illuminate how cultural developments, such as increasing opportunities for women’s participation in theatrical culture, the influence of European dramatic models, foreign policy under Elizabeth I and James I, or the growth of international commerce and a mercantile middle class, are related to the development of English drama.

This module is aimed at SH English and CH English and Drama or History students. It has no prerequisites, although Level 1 (NQF 4) “Rethinking Shakespeare” (English) is a good preparation. 

Module aims - intentions of the module

As well as studying individual texts in depth, we will investigate links between texts, and between texts and their production contexts. The module aims to introduce you to three interconnected theatrical cultures. It will enable you to understand how fashions, theatre companies, historical events and technical/architectural developments shaped English drama in the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline periods. Lectures and portfolio tasks will encourage research and interpretation that brings together literary analysis with theatre history and a sensitivity to performance. Module activities will encourage you to think more practically about the staging of specific scenes in early modern theatre spaces. Play reading workshops will provide opportunities for enjoying the plays in an informal setting, while viewing recordings of productions will enable an appreciation of early modern drama in present-day performance.  Study group discussions and group presentations or their online equivalents will give you the opportunity to develop your own approaches to the syllabus texts.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an informed appreciation of specific works of English drama from the late Elizabethan to the Caroline period.
• 2. Demonstrate an informed appreciation of the historical and cultural development of English drama from the late Elizabethan to the Caroline period.
• 3. Demonstrate an informed appreciation of a variety of critical approaches to English drama from the late Elizabethan to the Caroline period, with a particular focus on premodern critical race studies

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Demonstrate an advanced ability to analyse the drama of an earlier era and to relate its concerns and its modes of expression to its cultural, historical and theatrical contexts.
• 5. Demonstrate an advanced ability to relate texts and discourses specific to your own discipline to issues in the wider context of cultural and intellectual history.
• 6. Demonstrate an advanced ability to understand and analyse relevant theoretical ideas, ethical questions, and theatre history methodologies and to apply these ideas to the interpretation of dramatic texts

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Through essay-writing, demonstrate appropriate research skills, a capacity to construct a coherent, substantiated argument and a capacity to write clear and correct prose.
• 8. Through research for module discussions, portfolio tasks and essays, demonstrate a proficiency in information retrieval and analysis.
• 9. Through research, module discussion, presentation and writing, demonstrate a capacity to question assumptions, to distinguish between fact and opinion, and critically to reflect on your own learning process.
• 10. Through sitting your examination, demonstrate a proficiency in the use of memory and in the development, organisation and expression of ideas under pressure of time.

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• The syllabus will divide into two rough sections. In the first, we will study plays by Kyd, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson and through those plays explore staging conditions and conventions in outdoor public theatres, at court, and in the Inns of Court. The plays you study in this section will be the subject of your analysis in your take-home exam.

In the second section, we will study plays that are written with the Jacobean and Caroline elite in mind. Here, we’ll look at plays by Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Cary (the only woman to write an original play in the period), Middleton and Rowley, and Brome. While there are clear thematic connections between some of the plays on the module, the aim overall is to introduce you to as varied a diet of early modern drama as possible while critically interrogating these early modern English representations of diverse identities, mercantile and colonial expansion and the beginning of the slave trade – so expect a varied journey that takes you from farce, through comedy to tragicomedy, masque, historical tragedy to gruesome revenge drama. 

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Primary texts

• Simon Barker and Hilary Hinds, eds. The Routledge Anthology of Renaissance Drama (London, Routledge, 2003), http://encore.exeter.ac.uk/iii/encore/record/C__Rb4194870 [The Spanish Tragedy, Masque of Blackness, The Tragedy of Mariam, Epicene, The Changeling]
• David M. Bevington and Eric Rasmussen, eds. Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus and Other Plays. [For Tamburlaine Parts 1 and 2]
• Kent Cartwright, ed. The Comedy of Errors. By William Shakespeare. Arden Shakespeare (London: Bloomsbury, 2016).
• Suzanne Gossett, ed. Philaster, by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Arden Early Modern Drama (London: A&C. Black, 2009).
• Ania Loomba, ed. Antony and Cleopatra. By William Shakespeare. Norton Critical Editions (W.W. Norton, 011).
• Ramona Wray, ed. The Tragedy of Mariam. by Elizabeth Cary. Arden Early Modern Drama (London: Bloomsbury, 2012)

For the above texts, it is not essential that you own the specific edition identified; any good scholarly edition of single texts is acceptable (in the New Mermaids or Revels series, for example). All the module’s primary texts are available as e-texts which you can access via the relevant pages on the module’s ELE site. If you cannot afford to buy the books for the module, you can combine reading one of these e-texts with using the library copies for notes and introductory materials. Of all the e-texts available, the one which will benefit most from being complemented with a physical copy of the play is Philaster.

Selected secondary texts

• Pascale Aebischer, Jacobean Drama: A Reader’s Guide to Essential Criticism (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
• Yasmin Arshad,Imagining Cleopatra: Performing Gender and Power in Early Modern England. Arden Studies in Early Modern Drama (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).
• Richard Dutton, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
• Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearian Playing Companies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)
• Siobhan Keenan, Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare’s London. Arden Shakespeare. (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).
• Jane Milling and Peter Thomson, eds. The Cambridge History of British Theatre: Volume I: Origins to 1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
• Tiffany Stern, Making Shakespeare (London: Routledge, 2004)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11189
  
• Early English Books Online; World Shakespeare Bibliography Online (both via University Library subscription)

Key words search

Theatre history, Elizabethan drama, Stuart Drama, Caroline drama, premodern critical race studies, performance, tragedy, comedy, masque, tragicomedy Kyd, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Cary, Middleton, Rowley, Jonson,