Many early modern plays use poison, most famously Hamlet, where the murder of Old Hamlet showcases the range of issues poison mobilises. Its orchard setting is one of a number of sinister uses of plants which comment on both the loss of horticultural knowledge resulting from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and also the many new arrivals in English gardens through travel, trade, and attempts at colonisation. The fact that Old Hamlet was asleep reflects unease about soporifics troubling the distinction between sleep and death; pouring poison into the ear smuggles in the contemporary fear of informers; and it is difficult to prove. This book explores poisoning in early modern plays, the legal and epistemological issues it raises, and the cultural work it performs, which includes questions related to race, religion, nationality, gender, and humans’ relationship to the environment. -- .

This book brings together thirteen essays, by both established and emerging scholars, which examine the most influential meanings of roads in early modern literature and culture. Chapters develop our understanding of the place of the road in the early modern imagination and open various windows on a geography which may by its nature seem passing or trivial but is in fact central to all conceptions of movement. They also shed new light on perhaps the most astonishing achievement of early modern plays: their use of one small, bare space to suggest an amazing variety of physical and potentially metaphysical locations.

Tracks the history of concepts and practices associated with the physical crossroads in the early modern period Breaks new ground in the area of literary geography and enhances the historical understanding of the place of the crossroads in literary and cultural discourse Unifies various discourses of early modern culture and subjectivity in terms of the experience and understanding of the crossroads Locates issues around the ideology and experience of the road in one specific culturally significant place Focusing on the crossroads in the early modern period, this book deals with the literature and history of the physical crossroads: it's magical and religious encounters, rituals of transformation, binding of undesirable spirits, siting of gallows, associations with music, and links to ancient cosmology. Physical crossroads have been culturally vital sites where forces human, demonic and divine were felt to converge. Crossroads have seemed to render the boundaries between these spheres negotiable, subject to certain artifice and timing. They gave access to gods and facilitated deals with devils, they were potent sites for rituals intended to influence lovers or harm enemies and provided both a dramatic stage for communal activities and a burial ground for the unwanted dead cast out in ceremonies of the night.

Explores intrinsic connections between early modern intelligencers and metadrama in the plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries Intelligence and Metadrama in the Early Modern Theatre offers insight into why the early modern stage abounds with informer and intelligencer figures. Analysing both the nature of intelligence at the time and the metadrama that such characters generate, Angus highlights the significance of intrigue and corruption to dramatic narrative and structure. His study of metadrama reveals some of the most fundamental questions being posed about the legitimacy of authority, authorship and audience interpretation in this seminal era of English drama. Key Features Offers insight into the internal workings and motivations of the drama of Shakespeare's contemporaries Opens a new window on the ambitions, concerns, and fears of these important authors Enhances historical understanding of the place of the intelligencer in the society and the structures of authority within which the drama was produced

Explores disturbing connections between authors and informers revealed in the metadrama of Shakespeare and Jonson Have you ever wondered what was really going on in the inner-plays, secret overhearing, and tacit observations of early modern drama? Taking on the shadowy figure of the early modern informer, this book argues that far more than mere artistic experimentation is happening here. In case studies of metadramatic plays, and the devices which Shakespeare and Jonson constantly revisit, this book offers critical insight into intrinsic connections between informers and authors, discovering an uneasy sense of common practice at the core of the metadrama, which drives both its self-awareness and its paranoia. Drama is most self-revealing at these moments where it reflects upon its own dramatic register: where it is most metadramatic. To understand their metadrama is therefore to understand these most seminal authors in a new way. Key Features Offers a fresh insight into the internal workings and motivations of Shakespeare and Jonson's dramatic structures Opens a new window on the ambitions, concerns, and fears of these important authors Enhances historical understanding of the structures of authority within which the drama was produced, and the place of the informer in those structures

Focusing on the crossroads in the early modern period, this book deals with the literature and history of the physical crossroads: it's magical and religious encounters, rituals of transformation, binding of undesirable spirits, siting of gallows, associations with music, and links to ancient cosmology. Physical crossroads have been culturally vital sites where forces human, demonic and divine were felt to converge. Crossroads have seemed to render the boundaries between these spheres negotiable, subject to certain artifice and timing. They gave access to gods and facilitated deals with devils, they were potent sites for rituals intended to influence lovers or harm enemies and provided both a dramatic stage for communal activities and a burial ground for the unwanted dead cast out in ceremonies of the night.

Explores disturbing connections between authors and informers revealed in the metadrama of Shakespeare and JonsonHave you ever wondered what was really going on in the inner-plays, secret overhearing, and tacit observations of early modern drama? Taking on the shadowy figure of the early modern informer, this book argues that far more than mere artistic experimentation is happening here. In case studies of metadramatic plays, and the devices which Shakespeare and Jonson constantly revisit, this book offers critical insight into intrinsic connections between informers and authors, discovering an uneasy sense of common practice at the core of the metadrama, which drives both its self-awareness and its paranoia. Drama is most self-revealing at these moments where it reflects upon its own dramatic register: where it is most metadramatic. To understand their metadrama is therefore to understand these most seminal authors in a new way.Key FeaturesOffers a fresh insight into the internal workings and motivations of Shakespeare and Jonson's dramatic structuresOpens a new window on the ambitions, concerns, and fears of these important authorsEnhances historical understanding of the structures of authority within which the drama was produced, and the place of the informer in those structures

Explores how cultural conceptions of mobility and the road contribute to identity and culture in early modern Britain Opens new windows on early modern culture, subjectivity and perceptions around the experience of the road and how that shapes the idea of the road itself Offers insight into the ways both the bare boards of the stage and prose narratives were used to imagine road journeys and the intersections between public and private space Enhances historical understanding of the literal place of theatre in the road networks around early modern London Provides a crucial ligature in English literary and cultural history. The present plays and prose are prolegomena to the travel literature of Montagu, Swift, Boswell and Johnson in the Hebrides, Sterne's Sentimental Journey, Fielding's Tom Jones, and peripatetic Civil War narratives This book brings together thirteen essays, by both established and emerging scholars, which examine the most influential meanings of roads in early modern literature and culture. Chapters develop our understanding of the place of the road in the early modern imagination and open various windows on a geography which may by its nature seem passing or trivial but is in fact central to all conceptions of movement. They also shed new light on perhaps the most astonishing achievement of early modern plays: their use of one small, bare space to suggest an amazing variety of physical and potentially metaphysical locations.

Explores intrinsic connections between early modern intelligencers and metadrama in the plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries Intelligence and Metadrama in the Early Modern Theatre offers insight into why the early modern stage abounds with informer and intelligencer figures. Analysing both the nature of intelligence at the time and the metadrama that such characters generate, Angus highlights the significance of intrigue and corruption to dramatic narrative and structure. His study of metadrama reveals some of the most fundamental questions being posed about the legitimacy of authority, authorship and audience interpretation in this seminal era of English drama. Key Features Offers insight into the internal workings and motivations of the drama of Shakespeare's contemporaries Opens a new window on the ambitions, concerns, and fears of these important authors Enhances historical understanding of the place of the intelligencer in the society and the structures of authority within which the drama was produced