Shakespeare, the Queen's Men, and the Elizabethan Performance of History

This book studies the Shakespearean history play, examining the work of the Queen's Men and their influence on Shakespeare.

Brian Walsh (Author)

9781107629066, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 September 2013

246 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.37 kg

'One of the refreshing qualities of Walsh's book is his willingness to write about performance. This is something often lacking in literary criticism and, although it is becoming more widespread, there are few who manage to integrate it with quite as much verve as Walsh does.' Around the Globe

The Elizabethan history play was one of the most prevalent dramatic genres of the 1590s, and so was a major contribution to Elizabethan historical culture. The genre has been well served by critical studies that emphasize politics and ideology; however, there has been less interest in the way history is interrogated as an idea in these plays. Drawing in period-sensitive ways on the field of contemporary performance theory, this book looks at the Shakespearean history play from a fresh angle, by first analyzing the foundational work of the Queen's Men, the playing company that invented the popular history play. Through innovative readings of their plays including The Famous Victories of Henry V before moving on to Shakespeare's 1 Henry VI, Richard III, and Henry V, this book investigates how the Queen's Men's self-consciousness about performance helped to shape Shakespeare's dramatic and historical imagination.

Introduction
1. Dialogues with the dead: history, performance, and Elizabethan theater
2. Theatrical time and historical time: the temporality of the past in The Famous Victories of Henry V
3. Figuring history: truth, poetry, and report in The True Tragedy of Richard III
4. 'Unkind division': the double absence of performing history in 1 Henry VI
5. Richard III and Theatrum Historiae
6. Henry V and the extra-theatrical historical imagination
Conclusion: traces of Henry/traces of history.

Subject Areas: Shakespeare studies & criticism [DSGS], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature: history & criticism [DS], Literature & literary studies [D], Theatre studies [AN]