Elizabethan Stage Conditions
A Study of their Place in the Interpretation of Shakespeare's Plays

A short, vigorous and clear study of the use and misuse of our knowledge of Elizabethan stage conditions in interpreting Shakespeare's plays.

M. C. Bradbrook (Author)

9780521095396, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 October 1968

160 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.41 kg

A short, vigorous and clear study of the use and misuse of our knowledge of Elizabethan stage conditions in interpreting Shakespeare's plays. After reviewing past Shakespearean criticism and showing the unsatisfactory results of treating Shakespeare as a pure poet unfettered by time and place, Professor Bradbrook explains how the bare open stage of theatres like the Globe allowed great flexibility of dramatic structure for Shakespeare and his contemporaries; she considers the degree to which the Elizabethan audience influenced the content of the plays and the effects of the conventions and peculiarities of Shakespeare's actors on his dramatic characters. She argues that an increased knowledge of Elizabethan stage conditions can prevent the interference of some preconceptions of our own age and help to make a fruitful separation between historic and appreciative criticism. This essay, long unobtainable, is now made generally available.

Notes
Note on the Second Impression
1. Introduction
2. Shakespearian criticism - eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
3. Shakespearean criticism - twentieth century
4. Shakespeare's stage and his dramatic structure
5. The topical element in Shakespeare
6. The question of characterisation
7. Shakespeare and the 'profession'
8. Shakespeare's stage and his poetry
9. Shakespeare's stage and textual criticism
10. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Theatre studies [AN]