INTRODUCTION Thomas Kyd stamped his creative genius on the English drama as both an innovator and inventor of revenge tragedy- as a genre. This unit examines his contributions to the English drama during the Elizabethan […][…]
INTRODUCTION The personality of Christopher Marlowe is highly controversial due, chiefly, to the nature of his plays, poor record-keeping of his time, and above all, the type of life this brilliant and highly influential playwright […][…]
INTRODUCTION As his contemporary Ben Johnson notes, William Shakespeare “was not a man for an age but for all time”. In terms of popularity, variety, and sublimity of themes, dexterity of plot, eloquent poetry, and […][…]
INTRODUCTION The focus of this article will be on Shakespearean tragedy, tragicomedy as well as the chronicle play. The drama of Ben Johnson, Shakespeare’s contemporary will equally be examined here. William Shakespeare wrote enduring and […][…]
INTRODUCTION This article explains the nature and characteristics of Shakespeare’s tragicomedy. It gives an overview of the concept of tragicomedy before concentrating on the Shakespeare type of the genre. Finally, The Merchant of Venice (1596) […][…]
Christopher Marlowe’s play, Edward the Second, is often regarded as the first epoch-making English chronicle or historical play. Although there were earlier attempts to create historical drama in England, these efforts appear “more like epic […][…]
Benjamin Jonson, popularly known as Ben Jonson in literary circle, was a poet extraordinary, an excellent comic writer, great observer, narcissist, classicist as well as man of tremendous reach of thought. L.C. Knights (1955/1975) is […][…]
For the English people, 17th century was a period of great political turmoil and social upheaval. In 1642, the parliament outlawed theatrical performances in public places and playhouses. In 1649, political wrangling led to the […][…]