Seizures of the Will in Early Modern English Drama

An analysis of Renaissance plays in the context of social rank, gender, kinship, and service relationships.

Frank Whigham presents a detailed analysis of English Renaissance plays in the context of social rank, gender, kinship, and service relationships. He explores fantasies of the lurid and decadent life at the centre of national culture, and examines the collisions between rural values and newfangled metropolitan behaviour.In Seizures of the Will in Early Modern English Drama Frank Whigham combines an analysis of English Renaissance plays with an enriched sense of their social surroundings. He traces the violent gestures of social self-construction that animate many such plays, and the ways in which drama interacts with the conflict-ridden discourses of social, rank, gender, kinship, and service relationships. In Whigham's view, The Spanish Tragedy initiates the 'matter of court,' a complex and marauding discourse of gender warfare and master-servant manipulations; Arden of Faversham explores linked redefinitions of land, service, and marriage in county culture; The Miseries of Enforced Marriage and A Yorkshire Tragedy present a powerful critique of the traditional imperialism of kinship in northern England; and The Duchess of Malfi explores metaphors of erotic transgression.