Author Description

"The redefinition of the Thomas Middleton canon has led to an explosion of interest in this quintessential Jacobean. Middleton's best known plays, such as Women Beware Women and The Changeling, are now staged, filmed and rewritten for modern audiences. But Middleton also wrote religious poetry, satires, historical allegory, prose and less familiar plays, collaborating frequently, even with Shakespeare. His works are rooted in his historical and cultural environment, from the Overbury scandal to the fall of the boys' companies. Here, experts in literature, theatre, history, law and religion analyze the complex contexts of Middleton's works, clarifying debates over his religious and political affiliations. Divided into sections presenting new interpretations of the world in which Middleton wrote - as a Londoner, citizen, dramatist and early modern man - and concluding with a section on performance history, the essays cover the full range of his works, from the frequently performed to the newest attributions"-- "Thomas Middleton - playwright, poet, religious and political polemicist, City Chronologer of London and celebrator of royal entries - is a man best understood as product and producer of his own environment and yet, as demonstrated by in the success of his works on the contemporary stage and screen, one who speaks directly to the modern world. The essays in this volume are intended to assist readers, whether students coming to Middleton for the first time or experienced scholars more familiar with Shakespeare, in placing Middleton's writings in and against the world with which they are so deeply intertwined. Here Middleton is examined in his multiple contexts, that is, in his private life; in the city of early modern London in which he was born, lived, and died; in the national and international events that resonated in that city; in the environment of the Jacobean theaters; in the conditions of authorship that led, for example, to frequent collaboration of various kinds; and finally in the context of current intellectual, psychological, and social frameworks"--