The Elizabethan/Jacobean Playwright and His Audience: The Effects of the Relationship on Comic Form

FAIN: FA-12326-78

Lawrence N. Danson
Princeton University (Princeton, NJ 08540-5228)

This study, concerned with the attitudes of English Renaissance playwrights toward their audiences, and the consequences of those attitudes for their art, focuses especially on the comedies of Jonson and Shakespeare. An introductory section treats of "the traditions of comedy". Early in their careers both playwrights drew heavily on the classical tradition: it helped mold an essentially satiric form implying wariness between stage and audience. Study will conclude with information regarding Restoration comedy; its bracing bellicosity between author and pit is in part a Jonsonian legacy.