Not Shakespeare: Elizabethan and Jacobean Popular Theatre

This series of six lectures introduces six plays from the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre. Once popular and now little-known, they can tell us a lot about what their first audiences enjoyed, aspired to and worried about - from immigrants in early modern London to the role of women in the household, from what religious changes might mean for attitudes to the dead to fantasies of easy money and social elevation. Each lecture outlines the play so there is no assumption you have already read it, then goes on to try to understand its historical context and its dramatic legacy, drawing parallels with modern film and contemporary culture as well as with Elizabethan material. The lecturer's aim with students in the room and with interested listeners on iTunes U is to broaden our understanding of the theatre Shakespeare wrote for by thinking about some non-Shakespearean drama, and to recreate some of the excitement and dramatic possibilities of the new, popular technology of Renaissance theatre.

Oxford University Education 12 rész

The Tamer Tam'd: John Fletcher

52 perc 12. rész Emma Smith

A riposte to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew Fletcher’s play is a riposte to Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew: in this lecture I discuss their interconnectedness as a way to identify Fletcher’s particular dramaturgy.

Tis Pity She's a Whore: John Ford

53 perc 11. rész Emma Smith

Reboot of Romeo and Juliet and other Elizabethan plays This lecture discusses the play’s reboot of Romeo and Juliet and other Elizabethan plays, its sensationalism, and its connections to anatomy.

The Witch Of Edmonton

45 perc 10. rész Emma Smith

Witchcraft and bigamy. A collaborative play about witchcraft, bigamy - and a talking Dog - what more could you want?

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside: Thomas Middleton

53 perc 9. rész Emma Smith

This lecture discusses comedy, fertility, and all those illegitimate children in this play about sex, economics and meat.

The Alchemist: Ben Jonson

48 perc 8. rész Emma Smith

Written in the context of plague in London, The Alchemist’s plot and language are deeply concerned with speed and speculation.

Dr Faustus: Christopher Marlowe

49 perc 7. rész Emma Smith

My lecture on this infernal play discusses Elizabethan religion, the revisions to the play, and whether we should think about James Bond in its final minutes.

The Duchess of Malfi: John Webster

37 perc 1. rész Emma Smith

In dramatizing a woman's sexual choices in a notably sympathetic manner, this tragedy articulates perennial questions about female autonomy and class distinction.

The Roaring Girl: Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker

48 perc 2. rész Emma Smith

Based on a contemporary scandal of a woman who dressed in male clothing, this play of topsy-turvy genders has fun with some very modern ideas about sexuality, identity and whether we are what we wear.

The Revenger's Tragedy: Thomas Middleton

45 perc 3. rész Emma Smith

A blackly camp tragedy - Hamlet without the narcissism - set in a court corrupted by lust and self-interest, this play is both fascinated and repelled by its own depravity.

The Shoemaker's Holiday: Thomas Dekker

45 perc 4. rész Emma Smith

Like a Busby Berkeley depression-era musical, Dekker's comedy is a feel-good antidote to a context of shortages, political malaise and general pessimism, but real life in the shape of war, class antagonism and civic tensions, always threatens to intrude.

Arden of Faversham: Anon

41 perc 5. rész Emma Smith

A true crime story of the murder of Thomas Arden by his wife and her lover, this play is concerned with the politics of the household, with gender roles within marriage, and presents a black comedy of botched murder attempts rather like The Ladykillers.

The Spanish Tragedy: Thomas Kyd

49 perc 6. rész Emma Smith

Popular tragedy in which Hieronimo pursues aristocratic murderers of his son Horatio and takes revenge. It speaks, like Hollywood Westerns, to questions about private revenge versus public justice, and to the vexed religious questions of its age.