The Tudor Play of Mind Rhetorical Inquiry and the Development of Elizabethan Drama

Contrary to the widespread assumption that Elizabethan drama grows out of an essentially homiletic tradition, The Tudor Play of Mind proposes that many important plays-including such diverse works as Gorboduc, Endimion, Tamburlaine, The Spanish Tragedy, Every Man in His Humour, and Bussy D'Ambois-are informed by the ancient rhetorical tradition of posing questions and arguing them in utramque partem emphasized in humanist education. This accounts for the complex and often ambivalent responses they demand. In support of this thesis, Joel B. Altman shows how abstract debate questions were developed into increasingly subtle mimetic fictions in the sixteenth century. He discusses the significance of this process for the drama through detailed analyses of early debate plays, the Terentian commentaries and English comedy, Lyly's court allegories, Senecan tragedy, and the experimental plays of Marlowe. Altman's argument that Tudor playwrights offered their audiences dramatized inquiries will profoundly affect our interpretation of individual plays and our assessment of the larger cultural function of drama in the period.

ISBN:	9780520303157
Publisher:	University of California Press
Imprint:	University of California Press
Published date:	14 Aug 2018
Language:	English
Number of pages:	416
Weight:	636g
Height:	151mm
Width:	338mm
Spine width:	26mm

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