Mucedorus: the last ludic playbook, the first stage Arcadia

This article argues that two seemingly contradictory factors contributed to and sustained the success of the anonymous Elizabethan play Mucedorus (c. 1590; pub. 1598). First, that both the initial composition of Mucedorus and its Jacobean revival were driven in part by the popularity of its source, Philip Sidney's Arcadia. Second, the playbook's invitation to amateur playing allowed its romance narrative to be adopted and repurposed by diverse social groups. These two factors combined to create something of a paradox, suggesting that Mucedorus was both open to all yet iconographically connected to an elite author's popular text. This study will argue that Mucedorus pioneered the fashion for “continuations” or adaptations of the famously unfinished Arcadia, and one element of its success in print was its presentation as an affordable and performable version of Sidney's elite work. The Jacobean revival of Mucedorus by the King's Men is thus evidence of a strategy of engagement with the Arcadia designed to please the new Stuart monarchs. This association with the monarchy in part determined the cultural functions of the Arcadia and Mucedorus through the Interregnum to the close of the seventeenth century

Identifying a Troupe of Italian Players in England in 1574

This note identifies a previously unknown document in the Rye archive of the East Sussex Record Office. The document is a letter of safe passage for a group of twelve Italian men and women written by the English ambassador to France, Valentine Dale, in June 1574. Based on the names and other details Dale provides in the letter, this note argues that the group was a troupe of Italian performers touring to Eng­land — most likely the same troupe that entertained Queen Elizabeth at Windsor and Reading in July 1574 and the people of Dover in September or October 1574

Shakespeare Quartos Archive

This is a review of Shakespeare Quartos Archive

Trumpeters from China in Bristol in 1577?

This note corrects the impression given in the Bristol Records of Early English Drama (REED) that five trumpeters from China performed for the mayor, aldermen, and common council of Bristol in November 1577. Rather, the note points out that the trumpeters were likely English and were associated with the return of Martin Frobisher’s second northwest passage expedition that fall

‘I will keep and character that name’: Dramatis Personae Lists in Early Modern Manuscript Plays

W.W. Greg’s claim that manuscript plays containing character lists were intended for publication (print or manuscript) and not playhouse use fails to account for all of the evidence in surviving manuscripts. Instead, as this essay demonstrates, a more significant variable in the inclusion of character lists in manuscript plays is the writer’s professional or amateur status. This article argues that amateur playwrights, influenced by their experiences as readers of printed plays, were more likely than professionals to include the ‘readerly’ device of a dramatis personae list in their manuscript plays, even in the case of playhouse manuscripts