ENG731 Performance Spaces in Early Modern England
Dr Emma Rhatigan (co-ordinator)
This module will examine the complex relationship between performance and theatrical and non-theatrical space in early modern England. The course will commence with an exploration of playhouses in early modern London, investigating how playwrights and acting companies exploited and adapted to the stages on which they performed and how, in turn, these spaces reflected and inflected the dramatic content of the plays. It will then proceed to consider non-theatrical performance spaces including the court, the Inns of Court, the scaffold, and city pageantry, probing distinctions between theatrical and non-theatrical performance. Finally, we will consider the ways in which ideas of space and place are constructed in early modern drama, considering representations of the domestic, the city, Italy, and the Mediterranean. Set texts will include Shakespeare, Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, Henry V, and Othello, Jonson, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, and Volpone, Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, Middleton, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness, Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, and Daborne, A Christian Turned Turk. Students will also study a range of other genres, including the masque, sermon, scaffold speeches, and the Inns of Court revels.