Incest, Drama and Nature's Law, 1550–1700

A full-length study of incest in English Renaissance and Restoration drama.

Richard A. McCabe (Author)

9780521088749, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 October 2008

376 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23 x 16 x 2.1 cm, 0.55 kg

This is a full-length study of incest in English Renaissance and Restoration drama. Richard McCabe's comprehensive survey offers a literary history of this theme, informed by an investigation of the intellectual background, with particular emphasis on changing concepts of natural law, and consequent reassessments of classical tradition. It examines a wide range of theological, philosophical, legal and literary sources, in the context of modern psychological and sociological theories of family development. Extensive comparisons with classical models and contemporary European dramatists, from Tasso to Corneille and Racine, explore the volatile association between dramatic form and emotional content, structural experiment and sexual ambivalence. The centrality of the family to all human relationships, and the mutual reflection of familial politics and the patriarchal state make incest a powerful metaphor for the ambivalence of all concepts of 'natural' authority, and for various forms of social and political revolt.

Preface
List of abbreviations
Part I. Issues: 1. Mythical archetypes
2. Law and licence
Part II. Plays: 3. Classical models
4. Sixteenth-century tragedy
5. Incest averted, the comic perspective
6. Shakespeare
7. Beaumont and Fletcher
8. Tragedy and atheism
9. Tragedy and melancholia
10. Dryden
Epilogue
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]