In this volume, 8 lively, original essays by eminent scholars trace the kaleidoscopically shifting dramatic forms, performance contexts, and social implications of tragedy throughout the period and across geographic, political, and social references. They attend not only to the familiar cultural lenses of English and mainstream Continental dramas but also to less familiar European exempla from Croatia and Hungary. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: forms and media; sites of performance and circulation; communities of production and consumption; philosophy and social theory; religion, ritual and myth; politics of city and nation; society and family, and gender and sexuality.

In this volume, 8 lively, original essays by eminent scholars trace the kaleidoscopically shifting dramatic forms, performance contexts, and social implications of tragedy throughout the period and across geographic, political, and social references. They attend not only to the familiar cultural lenses of English and mainstream Continental dramas but also to less familiar European exempla from Croatia and Hungary. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: forms and media; sites of performance and circulation; communities of production and consumption; philosophy and social theory; religion, ritual and myth; politics of city and nation; society and family, and gender and sexuality.

Early modern prose fiction had a huge impact on the social and economic fabric of the time. It created a new culture of reading and writing for pleasure which became accessible to those previously excluded from such activities (primarily women and the working classes), resulting in a significant challenge to existing class structures.
Each of the essays in this exciting collection considers the reciprocal relation of early modern prose fiction to class distinctions, examining factors such as:
- The impact of prose fiction on the social, political and economic fabric of early modern England
- The way in which a growing emphasis on literacy allowed for increased class mobility and newly flexible notions of class
- How the popularity of reading and the subsequent demand for books led to the production and marketing of books as an industry
- Complications for critics of prose fiction, as it began to be considered an inferior and trivial art form
- The development of the genre of romance fiction and the emerging sense of 'nation' and 'nationalism' that accompanied it
Emphasizing the significance of early modern prose fiction as a hybrid genre that absorbed cultural, ideological, and historical strands of the age, this fascinating study brings together an outstanding cast of critics including: Sheila T. Cavanaugh, Stephen Guy-Bray, Mary Ellen Lamb, Joan Pong Linton, Steve Mentz, Constance C. Relihan, Goran V. Stanivukovic with an afterword from Arthur Kinney.

This wide-ranging and unique collection of documents on one of the most enduring of literary genres, Tragedy, offers a radical revaluation of its significance in the light of the critical attention that it has received during the past one-hundred and fifty years. The foundations of much contemporary thinking about Tragedy are to be found in the writings of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard; in addition, the dialectical tradition emanating from Marxism, and the psycho-analytical writings of Freud, have extended significantly the horizons of the subject. With the explosion of interest in the areas of post-structuralism, sociology of culture, social anthropology, feminism, deconstruction, and the study of ritual, new questions are being asked about this persistent artistic exploration of human experience. This book seeks to represent a full selection of these divergent interests, in a series of substantial extracts which display the continuing richness of the debate about a genre which has provoked, and challenged categorical discussion since the appearance of Aristotle's Poetics.

Shakespeare's Festive Tragedy is a unique look at the social and religious foundations of the tragic genre. Naomi Liebler asks whether it is possible to regard tragic heroes such as Coriolanus and King Lear as `sacrifical victims of the prevailing social order'.
A fascinating examination of Shakespearean tragedy, this extraordinary book will provoke excitment and controversy alike.

In "Shakespeare's Festive Tragedy" Naomi Conn Liebler offers a trenchant and challenging re-reading of the genre of Shakespearean tragedy. Extending the category of the "festive" to apply to tragedy as well as comedy, Liebler describes Shakespearean tragedy as a celebration of communal survival, and a demonstration of what happens when a community violates the ritual structures that define and preserve it.
Employing the works of drama theorists, such as Aristotle, Brecht and Girard, as well as cultural anthropologists, such as Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner and Mary Douglas, Liebler focuses upon tragedy as the formal representation of real social action and conflict. She views the community as a whole--not just the protagonist--as the real subject of the drama. The festive tragedy is concerned with ritual practice whose function is, as "King Lear's" Tom O'Bedlam put it, "to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin"--that is, to protect and purge. The violation of this ritual practice jeopardizes the survival of the entire community. Through a detailed analysis of a number of Shakespeare's great tragic works, "Shakespeare's Festive Tragedy" provides a series of fresh connections between the rituals of festivity and tragedy.

This wide-ranging and unique collection of documents on one of the most enduring of literary genres, Tragedy, offers a radical revaluation of its significance in the light of the critical attention that it has received during the past one-hundred and fifty years. The foundations of much contemporary thinking about Tragedy are to be found in the writings of Hegel, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard; in addition, the dialectical tradition emanating from Marxism, and the psycho-analytical writings of Freud, have extended significantly the horizons of the subject. With the explosion of interest in the areas of post-structuralism, sociology of culture, social anthropology, feminism, deconstruction, and the study of ritual, new questions are being asked about this persistent artistic exploration of human experience. This book seeks to represent a full selection of these divergent interests, in a series of substantial extracts which display the continuing richness of the debate about a genre which has provoked, and challenged categorical discussion since the appearance of Aristotle's Poetics.

Early modern prose fiction had a huge impact on the social and economic fabric of the time. It created a new culture of reading and writing for pleasure which became accessible to those previously excluded from such activities (primarily women and the working classes), resulting in a significant challenge to existing class structures.
Each of the essays in this exciting collection considers the reciprocal relation of early modern prose fiction to class distinctions, examining factors such as:
- The impact of prose fiction on the social, political and economic fabric of early modern England
- The way in which a growing emphasis on literacy allowed for increased class mobility and newly flexible notions of class
- How the popularity of reading and the subsequent demand for books led to the production and marketing of books as an industry
- Complications for critics of prose fiction, as it began to be considered an inferior and trivial art form
- The development of the genre of romance fiction and the emerging sense of 'nation' and 'nationalism' that accompanied it
Emphasizing the significance of early modern prose fiction as a hybrid genre that absorbed cultural, ideological, and historical strands of the age, this fascinating study brings together an outstanding cast of critics including: Sheila T. Cavanaugh, Stephen Guy-Bray, Mary Ellen Lamb, Joan Pong Linton, Steve Mentz, Constance C. Relihan, Goran V. Stanivukovic with an afterword from Arthur Kinney.