Starting from the early modern presumption of the incorporation of role with authority, Jean Lambert explores male teachers as representing and engaging with types of authority in English plays and dramatic entertainments by Shakespeare and his contemporaries from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth century.

This book examines these theatricalized portraits in terms of how they inflect aspects of humanist educational culture and analyzes those ideas and practices of humanist pedagogy that carry implications for the traditional foundations of authority.

Teachers in Early Modern English Drama is a fascinating study through two centuries of teaching Shakespeare and his contemporaries and will be a valuable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century drama, writing, and culture.