John Ford, Thomas Dekker, William Rowley

The Witch of Edmonton (eBook, PDF)

Redaktion: Kinney, Arthur F.

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

It is a historical phenomenon that while thousands of women were being burnt as witches in early modern Europe, the English - although there were a few celebrated trials and executions, one of which the play dramatises - were not widely infected by the witch-craze. The stage seems to have provided an outlet for anxieties about witchcraft, as well as an opportunity for public analysis. The Witch of Edmonton (1621) manifests this fundamentally reasonable attitude, with Dekker insisting on justice for the poor and oppressed, Ford providing psychological character studies, and Rowley the clowning. The village community of Edmonton feels threatened by two misfits, Old Mother Sawyer, who has turned to the devil to aid her against her unfeeling neighbours, and Frank, who refuses to marry the woman of his father's choice and ends up murdering her. This edition shows how the play generates sympathy for both and how contemporaries would have responded to its presentation of village life and witchcraft.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury eBooks UK
• Seitenzahl: 160
• Erscheinungstermin: 18. Juni 2014
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781408144237
• Artikelnr.: 41009054

Autorenporträt

John Ford (1586-1639) was an English playwright whose works have often been cited as examples of the 'decadence' of Caroline Drama. In the 19th century he was admired by Charles Lamb but attacked by William Hazlitt and others, who accused him of lacking a sense of morality. However, many 20th-century critics have praised his insight into character and his skill in writing dialogue

His best known play is the bloody tragedy 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1627). Other works inlcude Love's Sacrifice (1627), the tragicomedy The Lover's Melancholy (1628), and Perkin Warbeck (1634), described by T. S. Eliot as "one of the very best historical plays in the whole of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama".

Inhaltsangabe

List of illustrations
General editors' preface
Preface
Introduction
Prince Charles's Men, 1618-22
Collaborations
Reading Elizabeth Sawyer in 1621
Witchcraft and Bigamy: 1621 and 1658
Danger and Death: Tragicomedy and Domestic Drama in 1621
Curtain and Cockpit: Staging the Supernatural in 1621
London and Lancashire: Staging Witchcraft in 1634
The Witch and the Dog
Staging The Witch of Edmonton: 1921 to 2014
Edmonton on Stage
The Witch and the Dog: Reprise
Forget the Hobby Horse!
Printing The Witch of Edmonton: 1658 and 2014

Quarto Paratext

THE WITCH OF EDMONTON

Appendix: Doubling chart

Abbreviations and References
Abbreviations used in notes
Works by and partly by Shakespeare
Editions of The Witch of Edmonton collated
Other works cited
Modern productions cited