The Tudor Play of Mind: Rhetorical Inquiry and the Development of Elizabethan DramaContrary to the widespread assumption that Elizabethan drama grows out of an essentially homiletic tradition, The Tudor Play of Mind proposes that many important plays—including such diverse works as Gorboduc, Endimion, Tamburlaine, The Spanish Tragedy, Every Man in His Humour, and Bussy D’Ambois—are informed by the ancient rhetorical tradition of posing questions and arguing them in utramque partem emphasized in humanist education. This accounts for the complex and often ambivalent responses they demand. In support of this thesis, Joel B. Altman shows how abstract debate questions were developed into increasingly subtle mimetic fictions in the sixteenth century. He discusses the significance of this process for the drama through detailed analyses of early debate plays, the Terentian commentaries and English comedy, Lyly's court allegories, Senecan tragedy, and the experimental plays of Marlowe. Altman’s argument that Tudor playwrights offered their audiences dramatized inquiries will profoundly affect our interpretation of individual plays and our assessment of the larger cultural function of drama in the period. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978. |
Contents
Two Paradigms | 13 |
The Moral Cultivation of Ambivalence | 31 |
Questions as Fiction | 64 |
Debate Plays by Heywood and Rastell | 107 |
Terence and the Mimesis of | 130 |
Inventing Answers in English Comedy | 148 |
Pastoral and Courtly in John Lyly | 196 |
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The Tudor Play of Mind: Rhetorical Inquiry and the Development of ... Joel B. Altman Limited preview - 2024 |
The Tudor Play of Mind: Rhetorical Inquiry and the Development of ... Joel B. Altman Limited preview - 2024 |
Common terms and phrases
action Antipholus Antonio's Revenge appears Arcadia argues argument Aristotle audience Balthazar Barabas becomes Bussy Bussy D'Ambois Chapman character Chorus Chremes Cicero comedy comic concern Court Courtier Creon death debate declares dialogue dispute divine drama Elizabethan Endimion epitasis Erasmus Eteocles ethical Euripides evil examine exemplum fact father Faustus Faustus's fiction final folly fool function Gallathea Gorboduc hath hero Heywood Hieronimo human humanist hypothesis ibid imagination inquiry invention issue John Lyly Jonson judgment kind king literary London Lorenzo Lover Lucres Lyly Lyly's Marlowe Marlowe's marriage matter means Medea ment mind moral Mordred Musidorus nature nobility offers orator Pamphilus passion play plot Praise of Folly proof prosopopoeia Pyrochles question Quintilian reason reveals revenge rhetorical scene Seneca Sidney Sidney's simply sophistic soul Spanish Tragedy speech status suggests Tamburlaine Terence Terentian thesis things thou tion tradition tragedy tragic trans truth utramque partem virtue words Zenocrate