[N. Matheson]

Not all poetry is going to be an interrgoation of the human condition. Shakespeare wrote plays more than anything. They're scripts. They're characters describing things happening because they had almost no sets. And if someone was stabbed, they have to explain that to you because the idea of showing not telling in acting didn't exist yet.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

Not all poetry is going to be an interrgoation of the human condition. Shakespeare wrote plays more than anything. They're scripts. They're characters describing things happening because they had almost no sets. And if someone was stabbed, they have to explain that to you because the idea of showing not telling in acting didn't exist yet.

Sorry, N., but this is patently incorrect. No sets? Someone tell Inigo Jones, famous for his Renaissance set design! Showing not telling in acting didn't exist? I guess dumb shows weren't a thing! Let's not let assumptions about what Renaissance theater looked like get in the way of facts.

[N. Matheson]

Okay, I will admit to being wrong. But you have to admit, whenever someone dies in an Elizabethan play, they have to vocally tell the audience they just got killed.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

Okay, I will admit to being wrong. But you have to admit, whenever someone dies in an Elizabethan play, they have to vocally tell the audience they just got killed.

No. It does happen, but only occasionally, and usually when the death might be otherwise unclear to the audience for any number of circumstantial reasons. I'm honestly not sure where all of these absolutes are coming from, because they're neither correct nor helpful ways of thinking about art. To wit: technically, a sonnet is fourteen lines in a consistent meter with a consistent rhyme scheme and a volta. And yet we have sonnets of different lengths with varying meters, no rhyme schemes, and no clear voltas. Guidelines and traditions? Yes. Proscriptives? Not so much.

[Christine P'legion]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

Okay, I will admit to being wrong. But you have to admit, whenever someone dies in an Elizabethan play, they have to vocally tell the audience they just got killed.

Out of curiosity—which of Shakespeare's plays have you read? And which (if any) of his contemporaries?

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Christine P'legion

Out of curiosity—which of Shakespeare's plays have you read? And which (if any) of his contemporaries?

A related question for Shaun and other Early Modernists: Which Elizabethan plays, other than Shakespeare’s, should I put at the top of my list? I’ve seen, not read, Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” and Webster’s “Duchess of Malfi” and read the anonymous “King Leir,” which Tolstoy thought far superior to Shakespeare’s. None of them excited me as much as my Shakespearean favorites. While I sometimes think the Bard went too far by killing off Cordelia (an old debate, I know), “King Leir” ends happily with everyone still alive and kicking!

[Christine P'legion]

It's been a long time since I've dipped into these waters, but I found an old syllabus that gives a pretty broad overview:

The Spanish Tragedy (Kyd)
Endymion (Lyly)
Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1 (Marlowe)
Doctor Faustus (Marlowe)
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (Greene)
Edward II (Marlowe)
Arden of Faversham (Anon.)
Shoemaker's Holiday (Dekker)
The Malcontent (Marston)

From another course, I can't find the syllabus but I have some old essays and particularly remember enjoying:

Women Beware Women (Middleton)
The Revenger's Tragedy (Middleton... maybe)
Love's Cure (Beaumont and Fletcher... maybe)
The Roaring Girl (Dekker and Middleton)
Ram-Alley (Barry)

The first two on this shorter list are such outrageously tragical tragedies that they wrap back around to farce; I found them extremely funny.

Edit to add: the Northon Anthology of Early English Drama has a lot of these, though not all.

[Phil Wood]

Tragic heroes: Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Macbeth
Tragic victims: Ophelia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Lady Macduff

Not great plays for female roles, but then boys played those roles. Of course, there is a historical context.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books...8E6FB11CD72568

[Simon Hunt]

Enjoying this discussion very much. Particular faves from BITD when I was sort of an academic:

all of Marlowe (esp Doctor Faustus)
Jonson, Volpone (to start with, but why stop there?)
Webster, Duchess of Malfi (love him in Shakespeare in Love)
Beaumont, Knight of the Burning Pestle (really funny, surprisingly "post-modern" satire of other plays)

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

A related question for Shaun and other Early Modernists: Which Elizabethan plays, other than Shakespeare’s, should I put at the top of my list? I’ve seen, not read, Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” and Webster’s “Duchess of Malfi” and read the anonymous “King Leir,” which Tolstoy thought far superior to Shakespeare’s. None of them excited me as much as my Shakespearean favorites. While I sometimes think the Bard went too far by killing off Cordelia (an old debate, I know), “King Leir” ends happily with everyone still alive and kicking!

(Technically Duchess of Malfi is Jacobean, not Elizabethan, but that's just me being pedantic).

Pedantry aside, I think Christine's list is great. I've read most of them, and would especially recommend Tamburlaine (though both parts -- not just Part I), which feels a bit like Antony and Cleopatra merged with Titus Andronicus. Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is brilliant, if you can stomach actual (not implied) incest among protagonists. Fletcher and Beaumont's A King and No King has a milder version of that theme in a tragicomic context. Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy is very much a precursor to Hamlet, and is very good even if it's impossible not to read it without thinking of all the connections. Massinger's The Renegado is delicious. For comedies, Jonson is somehow underrated. Volpone and The Alchemist are brilliant. I'd also recommend Fletcher's The Island Princess.


There are others, but all of the above (and the ones I know from Christine's list) are all worthwhile.