Shakespeares Early History Plays Politics at Play on the Elizabethan Stage [Paperback]

This study examines the early history plays - the first tetralogy and King John - as plays, not only by analyzing their theatrical dimensions but also be connecting their staging with the playhouse as a social institution and with the theatricality of Elizabethan culture in the 1590s.Part I Theatre, history, politics: theatrical dimensions of the dramatic text; theatricality and politics; the theatre as an institution. Part 2 Henry VI : spectacles of chaos; from ceremony to practice . Part 3 Henry VI : madness and butchery; savage comedy and the audience's nightmare. Part 4 Henry VI : the law of the scabbard; ritualizing atrocity. Part 5 Richard III : the actor's audience; faction and providence. Part 6 King John : John and The Arts of Fallacy ; the political language of excess. Part 7 Paradox, play, politics.