Siobhan Keenan – författare

The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625-1642 is the first study to focus on the history, and the political and cultural significance, of the travels and public profile of Charles I. As well as offering a much fuller account of the king's progresses and Caroline progress entertainments than currently exists, this volumes throws fresh light on the question of Charles I's accessibility to his subjects and their concerns, and the part that this may, or may not, have played in the political conflicts which culminated in the English civil wars and Charles's overthrow.Drawing on extensive archival research, the history opens with an introduction to the early modern culture of royal progresses and public ceremonial as inherited and practiced by Charles I. Part I explores the question of the king's accessibility further through case studies of Charles's three 'great' progresses in 1633, 1634, and 1636. Part II turns attention to royal public ceremonial culture in Caroline London, focusing on Charles's spectacular royal entry to the city on 25 November 1641. More widely travelled than his ancestors, Progresses reveals a monarch who was only too well aware of the value of public ceremonial and who did not eschew it, even if he was not always willing to engage in ceremonial dialogue with his subjects or able to deploy the propaganda power of public display as successfully as his Tudor and Stuart predecessors.

Collections XVII is the latest volume in the Malone Society’s pioneering series of editions of miscellaneous documents relating to English theatre and drama before 1642. It is likely to be of special interest not only to early theatre historians but to those working on Tudor and Stuart court and civic culture, manuscript writing, household drama and early modern women’s writing, as it publishes new material in each of these fields. The book includes items such as Revels Office accounts, a playscript fragment, entertainments, poems and civic shows. Many of these documents are previously unpublished, and have been freshly edited and transcribed; each has an introduction giving details of its date, authorship and historical importance. The volume will be essential reading for postgraduates and university teachers in early modern drama, theatre history and women’s writing.

This concise introduction to the literature of an exciting and influential period opens with an overview of the historical and cultural context in which English Renaissance literature was produced, and a discussion of its contemporary and subsequent critical reception. The following chapters survey the major Renaissance genres of drama, poetry and prose. Each chapter provides illustrative case studies of canonical and non-canonical key texts by authors such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, John Milton, Sir Philip Sidney, John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, Sir Francis Bacon, Thomas Nashe, and Lady Mary Wroth. A guide to further reading accompanies each chapter, complemented by a section of student resources at the end of the book. The final chapter summarises significant developments in English Renaissance literary culture, and discusses the future direction of Renaissance literary scholarship.Key Features*Detailed readings of Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Milton's 'Lycidas', Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Venus and Adonis and Hamlet, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Jonson's The Alchemist, Lanyer's 'The Description of Cookham', Bacon's Essays, Donne's sermons, Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller and Wroth's The Countess of Montgomery's Urania*A broad overview of Renaissance literature and the context in which it was produced*An accessible introduction to Renaissance literary criticism, including past and present debates about the Renaissance 'canon'*A variety of study aids, including end-of-chapter summaries of key points, a glossary of literary and historical terms, a chronology, advice on essay writing, sample essay questions and plans, and a guide to further reading and electronic research resources.

This concise introduction to the literature of an exciting and influential period opens with an overview of the historical and cultural context in which English Renaissance literature was produced, and a discussion of its contemporary and subsequent critical reception. The following chapters survey the major Renaissance genres of drama, poetry and prose. Each chapter provides illustrative case studies of canonical and non-canonical key texts by authors such as William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, John Milton, Sir Philip Sidney, John Donne, Aemilia Lanyer, Sir Francis Bacon, Thomas Nashe, and Lady Mary Wroth. A guide to further reading accompanies each chapter, complemented by a section of student resources at the end of the book. The final chapter summarises significant developments in English Renaissance literary culture, and discusses the future direction of Renaissance literary scholarship.Key Features*Detailed readings of Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Milton's 'Lycidas', Sidney's Astrophil and Stella, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Venus and Adonis and Hamlet, Marlowe's Tamburlaine, Jonson's The Alchemist, Lanyer's 'The Description of Cookham', Bacon's Essays, Donne's sermons, Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller and Wroth's The Countess of Montgomery's Urania*A broad overview of Renaissance literature and the context in which it was produced*An accessible introduction to Renaissance literary criticism, including past and present debates about the Renaissance 'canon'*A variety of study aids, including end-of-chapter summaries of key points, a glossary of literary and historical terms, a chronology, advice on essay writing, sample essay questions and plans, and a guide to further reading and electronic research resources.

With a foreword from the celebrated cultural economist Bruno Frey and nine essays exploring the cultural and economic impact of Shakespeare in his own day and the present, Shakespeare’s Cultural Capital forms a unique offering to the study of cultural economics and Shakespeare.

With a foreword from the celebrated cultural economist Bruno Frey and nine essays exploring the cultural and economic impact of Shakespeare in his own day and the present, Shakespeare’s Cultural Capital forms a unique offering to the study of cultural economics and Shakespeare.

The first in-depth study of the career of Shakespearean ‘star’ actor and theatrical impresario, Richard Burbage.This book draws on new archival research to offer the first comprehensive study of Burbage’s brilliant theatrical career and his ground-breaking contribution to the development of professional theatre as co-founder and owner of the Globe Theatre and a co-owner and manager of the Second Blackfriars Theatre. Richard Burbage is best known for becoming the leading actor in Shakespeare’s acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s (later, the King’s) players, and as the man for whom Shakespeare created some of his most memorable leading roles, including Hamlet, Othello and King Lear. He was one of the first ‘star’ actors whose reputation came to transcend the roles he performed and who played a pivotal part in the success of London’s theatre in Shakespeare’s day. Siobhan Keenan begins by tracing Burbage’s early life in Shoreditch, and the emergent theatrical community of which he was a part, before moving on to explore his growing reputation as a player and theatre manager, first as a member of the newly-formed Lord Chamberlain’s Players (1594), through to his establishment as one of the leading actors of his era as chief player with the King’s Men and co-owner of the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres.Burbage’s influence on the era’s leading professional playwrights, including, most notably, Shakespeare, but also contemporaries such as Ben Jonson and John Webster, is examined alongside an assessment of his wider impact on early modern acting traditions and his cultural legacy as a Shakespearean star actor and early theatrical entrepreneur.

Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London explores the intimate and dynamic relationship between acting companies and playwrights in this seminal era in English theatre history.Siobhan Keenan’s analysis includes chapters on the traditions and workings of contemporary acting companies, playwriting practices, stages and staging, audiences and patrons, each illustrated with detailed case studies of individual acting companies and their plays, including troupes such as Lady Elizabeth’s players, ‘Beeston’s Boys’ and the King’s Men and works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Brome and Heywood. We are accustomed to focusing on individual playwrights: Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London makes the case that we also need to think about the companies for which dramatists wrote and with whose members they collaborated, if we wish to better understand the dramas of the English Renaissance stage.

Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London explores the intimate and dynamic relationship between acting companies and playwrights in this seminal era in English theatre history.Siobhan Keenan’s analysis includes chapters on the traditions and workings of contemporary acting companies, playwriting practices, stages and staging, audiences and patrons, each illustrated with detailed case studies of individual acting companies and their plays, including troupes such as Lady Elizabeth’s players, ‘Beeston’s Boys’ and the King’s Men and works by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Brome and Heywood. We are accustomed to focusing on individual playwrights: Acting Companies and their Plays in Shakespeare's London makes the case that we also need to think about the companies for which dramatists wrote and with whose members they collaborated, if we wish to better understand the dramas of the English Renaissance stage.

The Twice-Chang’d Friar is one of four early seventeenth-century plays preserved in a manuscript miscellany in the library of the Newdigate family of Arbury Hall, Nuneaton (Arbury Hall MS A414). The play, which appears to have been written by family member and drama lover John Newdigate III, is thought to be unique to this manuscript. This edition makes the play available in print for the first time. The Twice Chang’d Friar is an Italianate city comedy based on a tale from Boccaccio’s Decameron. It tells the story of Albert, a friar who seduces Lisetta, a beautiful Venetian merchant’s wife by persuading her that he is the incarnation of Cupid. Albert’s plot is eventually uncovered by Lisetta’s brothers, whom he escapes by disguising himself in a bear’s skin. The play is a fascinating example of an amateur manuscript drama, of interest to all scholars and students of early modern drama.

Of all the tales to be found in Boccaccio’s Decameron, the tragic story of King Tancred’s efforts to frustrate the love of his daughter Gismond for Guiscardo, was probably the best known and most popular in Renaissance England. This Collections volume brings together the earliest texts of the first and last pre-1642 plays to deal with the lovers’ story: the Inner Temple tragedy, Gismond of Salern (1568), and a much-revised play probably by amateur Warwickshire dramatist John Newdigate (1620s). It presents the first modern transcription of the Hargrave MS of Gismond of Salern and the first ever printed edition of Newdigate’s untitled play, here named Glausamond and Fidelia. Together, the plays offer fresh proof of the important influence of Boccaccio, and Italian literature on English Renaissance drama. They are also fascinating examples of the period’s amateur drama, of interest to all scholars and students of early modern English theatre.