The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama: Perspectives on Culture, Performance and Identity

How does our understanding of early modern performance, culture and identity change when we decentre Shakespeare? And how might a more inclusive approach to early modern drama help enable students to discuss a range of issues, including race and gender, in more productive ways?

Underpinned by these questions, this collection offers a wide-ranging, authoritative guide to research on drama in Shakespeare’s England, mapping the variety of approaches to the context and work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. By paying attention to repertory, performance in and beyond playhouses, modes of performance, and lost and less-studied plays, the handbook reshapes our critical narratives about early modern drama.

Chapters explore early modern drama through a range of cultural contexts and approaches, from material culture and emotion studies to early modern race work and new directions in disability and trans studies, as well as contemporary performance. Running through the collection is a shared focus on contemporary concerns, with contributors exploring how race, religion, environment, gender and sexuality animate 16th- and 17th-century drama and, crucially, the questions we bring to our study, teaching and research of it. The volume includes a ground-breaking assessment of the chronology of early modern drama, a survey of resources and an annotated bibliography to assist researchers as they pursue their own avenues of inquiry.

Combining original research with an account of the current state of play, The Arden Handbook of Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama is an invaluable resource both for experienced scholars and for those beginning work in the field.

Michelle M. Dowd is Hudson Strode Professor of English and Director of the Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies at the University of Alabama, USA. She is the author of Women’s Work in Early Modern English Literature and Culture (2009) and The Dynamics of Inheritance on the Shakespearean Stage (2015). She has also co-edited several volumes and published numerous articles on early modern drama.

Tom Rutter is Senior Lecturer in Renaissance Drama at the University of Sheffield, UK. He is the author of Shakespeare and the Admiral’s Men (2017), The Cambridge Introduction to Christopher Marlowe (2012) and Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage (2008), as well as numerous essays and articles on early modern drama.