Overview

Explores disturbing connections between authors and informers revealed in the metadrama of Shakespeare and Jonson Have you ever wondered what was really going on in the inner-plays, secret overhearing, and tacit observations of early modern drama? Taking on the shadowy figure of the early modern informer, this book argues that far more than mere artistic experimentation is happening here. In case studies of metadramatic plays, and the devices which Shakespeare and Jonson constantly revisit, this book offers critical insight into intrinsic connections between informers and authors, discovering an uneasy sense of common practice at the core of the metadrama, which drives both its self-awareness and its paranoia. Drama is most self-revealing at these moments where it reflects upon its own dramatic register: where it is most metadramatic. To understand their metadrama is therefore to understand these most seminal authors in a new way. Key Features Offers a fresh insight into the internal workings and motivations of Shakespeare and Jonson’s dramatic structures Opens a new window on the ambitions, concerns, and fears of these important authors Enhances historical understanding of the structures of authority within which the drama was produced, and the place of the informer in those structures

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9781474415118

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Reviews

"A carefully developed and original argument that brings to our attention a hitherto overlooked aspect of Renaissance drama. A theoretically sophisticated and historically informed account, full of surprising perceptions that, taken together, add significantly to our knowledge, and will enhance considerably our readings of the plays of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.--University of Stirling ""John Drakakis"" This book is a learned, distinctive study which makes a forceful argument for paying new attention to the crucial but neglected figure of the informer in Renaissance literary and political culture, as well as intervening in debates about the metadramatic aspects of canonical Renaissance plays.--Newcastle University ""Kate Chedgzoy"""

Author Information

Bill Angus is a Senior Lecturer in English at Massey University, New Zealand. He has written extensively on early modern drama and material culture. His books with Edinburgh University Press include Metadrama and the Informer in Shakespeare and Jonson (2016), Intelligence and Metadrama in the Early Modern Theatre (2018), Reading the Road, from Shakespeare's Crossways to Bunyan's Highways (2019), co-edited with Lisa Hopkins, and his last monograph, A History of Crossroads in Early Modern Culture (2022). His latest edited collection Poison on the Early Modern English Stage, co-edited with Kibrina Davey and Lisa Hopkins, was published in 2023.

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