Front cover image for Seizures of the will in early modern English drama

Seizures of the will in early modern English drama

In Seizures of the Will in Early Modern English Drama Frank Whigham combines an analysis of English Renaissance plays with an enriched sense of their social surroundings. He traces the violent gestures of social self-construction that animate many such plays, and the ways in which drama interacts with the conflict-ridden discourses of social, rank, gender, kinship, and service relationships. In Whigham's view, The Spanish Tragedy initiates the 'matter of court, ' a complex and marauding discourse of gender warfare and master-servant manipulations; Arden of Faversham explores linked redefinitions of land, service, and marriage in county culture; The Miseries of Enforced Marriage and A Yorkshire Tragedy present a powerful critique of the traditional imperialism of kinship in northern England; and The Duchess of Malfi explores metaphors of erotic transgression
Print Book, English, 1996
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996
Criticism, interpretation, etc
xii, 299 pages ; 23 cm.
9780521418775, 9780521564496, 0521418771, 0521564492
32469624
1. Forcing divorce in The Spanish Tragedy
2. Hunger and pain in Arden of Faversham
3. The ideology of prodigality in The Miseries of an Enforced Marriage, and A Yorkshire Tragedy
4. Sexual and social mobility in The Duchess of Malfi