1st Edition

Printed Drama and Political Instability in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Britain The Literary Politics of Resistance and Distraction in Plays and Entertainments, 1649–1658

By Christopher Orchard Copyright 2023
346 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

346 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

346 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Printed Drama and Political Instability in Mid-Seventeenth-Century Britain: The Literary Politics of Resistance and Distraction in Plays and Entertainments, 1649 – 1658 describes the function of printed drama in 1650s Britain. After the regicide of 1649, printed plays could be interpreted by royalist readers as texts of resistance to the republic and protectoral governments respectively.... Read more

Acknowledgements; Introduction: The politics of printed drama in 1650s Britain; Chapter 1: The ambivalent political messaging of Royalist drama, 1649-1650; Chapter 2: Poetics as political policy: the republic’s early response to Royalist drama, 1649-1651; Chapter 3: “A floating unbalanced people”: Drama and the instability of the republican state, 1651-1653; Chapter 4: They “always speak things as they would have them”: The failures of aspirational royalist drama, 1651-1653; Chapter 5: Royalist drama, the legitimacy of authority, and social and political unrest in the mid-1650s; Chapter 6: Republics and ethics: The moral probity of protectoral entertainments, 1653-1658; Conclusion: The hijacking of republican poetics; Index

Biography

Christopher Orchard is a professor in the English department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where he specializes in Renaissance literature, literature of the 1640s and 1650s, and Shakespeare. He has published numerous articles on Milton, Katherine Philips, and writing of the 1650s.