This Readers' Guide introduces readers to the criticism and debates that are specific to the drama of the Jacobean period. Covering playwrights such as Jonson, Middleton, Dekker, Webster, as well as Shakespeare, the guide explores key topics including theatrical conditions, genre, performance studies, textual transmission, gender and race.

The plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries are increasingly popular thanks to a spate of recent stage and screen productions and to courses that set Shakespeare's plays in context. This Reader's Guide introduces students to the criticism and debates that are specific to the drama of playwrights such as Jonson, Middleton, Dekker and Webster. Pascale Aebischer explores recent critical developments in key areas including:

• how the plays were staged and printed
• innovative editions of plays
• how the plays represent and contest the dominant ideologies of the Jacobean period
• dramatic genres
• the representation of the human body and of social, gender and race relations
• modern productions on stage and screen.

Featuring suggestions for further research and reading, and a filmography of commercially available film versions of non-Shakespearean drama, this is an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in the diverse plays of the Jacobean age.

Introduces readers to the key criticism and debates that are specific to the drama of the Jacobean period and Shakespeare's contemporaries
Examines the most important research and developments of the past thirty years in areas such as theatre history, textual studies, genre studies, race criticism, gender and queer studies and performance studies
Includes helpful suggestions for further research and reading, as well as a select filmography of commercially available film versions of plays

Autorentext
PASCALE AEBISCHER is Senior Lecturer in Renaissance Studies at the University of Exeter, UK.

Inhalt
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Critical Trail Early Views to the Twentieth Century
Theatre History
Textual Transmission
Historical Contexts
The Genres of Jacobean Drama
Body and Race Scholarship
Gender and Sexuality
Performance Studies
Conclusion
Notes
Select Bibliography
Select Filmography
Index