Shakespeare & The Drama of His Time (Paperback - 2012)

William Shakespeare lived and worked during an extraordinary quarter-century in the history of English drama, which saw the development of new kinds of tragedy and comedy, and the birth of the entirely new genre of tragicomedy. Beginning with the institutional foundations that were laid with the emergence of the commercial theatre business in 1570s London, Shakespeare and the Drama of his Time describes the principal audience fashions, artistic conventions, and professional circumstances which defined, and enabled, his plays and those of his colleagues: plays of a range and sophistication undreamed of by earlier generations, and rarely equalled since. Throughout, Shakespeare's plays Are shown to be intimately associated with those of his contemporaries, notably Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, John Marston, and John Fletcher.

Martin Wiggins is Senior Lecturer and Fellow at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon.