literature, education, and early modern drama // the words, words, words of Dr James Alsop, Teacher of English // views are my own and do not represent those of my employer
This chapter is part literature review, part mission statement: in it, I outline how the notion of a "ghost" would have been understood by somebody living at the turn of the 17th Century. What - or who - *were* ghosts? What did they look like? Where did they come from? Most importantly, I begin to explore how might the various historical, religious, and political significations of the ghost may have influenced the characters we see on the early modern stage...
There was a great deal to laugh about in this production. More impressive, though, was the way it left the audience smiling afterwards. This was a Midsummer with heart as well as humour - a most rare vision indeed...
Few plays explore the rich dramatic potential of living death as explicitly as Thomas Middleton’s The Lady's Tragedy (or, The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, as the play is sometimes known), a tragedy that in the first three acts alone presents suicide, grave-robbing, defiled corpses, and ghosts. Middleton did *not* do these things by halves.
For a Senecan-styled tragedy of inordinate bloodshed, things work out remarkably well for the characters who survive John Marston’s 1602 Antonio’s Revenge...
Sometimes a play can be so callous, so poorly-judged, so utterly tone-deaf that one isn't sure whether to laugh or cry. On this occasion, however, my mind is rather made up.
