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Renaissance drama witnesses the transition from an older model of economics to a modern market economy. But it also responds to and actively participates in these changes. Economic Man is not an 18th-century invention; neither is the experience of market relations as determining every sphere of life a characteristic of later periods such as our own. Theatre and commerce already interact closely in early modern times, and not only in the sense of playwrights and actors holding shares in their troupes.
This seminar will explore the intersections between drama and economy on levels ranging from the thematic to the formal and aesthetic. It will also attempt to define and describe some of the textual economies invented and employed by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We shall look closely not only at Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice (with Marlowe’s Jew of Malta) but also at Timon of Athens (written in collaboration with Thomas Middleton), and a few other city comedies by (e.g. Middleton’s A Mad World My Masters, or Ben Jonson’s co-production with Chapman and Marston, Eastward Ho!), as well as a number of less obvious texts such as Coriolanus and possibly also a selection of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Participants must possess both The Merchant of Venice and Timon of Athens in annotated, critical print versions. I recommend either Arden or Oxford editions (individual works, available as paperbacks) or alternatively, The Norton Shakespeare (one-volume paperback edition of the complete works). |
