Eight Famous Elizabethan Plays

by Esther Cloudman Dunn

hardbound

Genres: Drama

721 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1950

Reviews

[Tinquerbelle]

1) The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus; Marlowe, Christopher
2) The Shoemaker's Holiday; Dekker, Thomas
3) A Woman Killed with Kindness; Heywood, Thomas
4) Volpone, or The Fox, a Comedy; Jonson, Ben
5) The Maid's Tragedy; Beaumont, Francis and John Fletcher
6) The Duchess of Malfi; Webster, John
7) A New Way to Pay Old Debts; Massinger, Philip
8) 'Tis Pity She's a Whore; Ford, John

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some are okay, but some are brutally violent. Take the tragedy and blood of Greek tragedy and mix in the melodrama of 16th century Christian morality and you have the receipt for these plays.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting collection of plays. They are not at all to contemporary tastes, as the title of the last one - 'Tis Pity She's a Whore - indicates. Remember that these authors were contemporaries, more or less of William Shakespeare, so these plays are around four hundred years old. Moreover, most of them seem to be modelled on Italian examples, perhaps from Bocaccio and similar tales. They have an adolescent sense of humor, in which violations of taste, manners, and morals are hilarious.

Revenge is a common theme here, and violations of honor drive the characters. Thus, they come off much like certain operas, at the end of which everybody dies. This man poisons that woman, and that woman stabs that man, and these other two men fight to the death.

I found the quality extremely variable and the plot devices crude. Still, by working at the edges what might be socially acceptable, the authors present stories that often engage the attention.

And now for something completely different, seventeenth century drama!