Volume 28, Number 1, 2025 Access to current issues of this journal requires a subscription.

EN:

When Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, travelled to the Netherlands leading Elizabeth I’s 1585 military intervention in the Dutch revolt, he brought along his acting troupe, which delivered entertainment during the welcome festivities, performing for several of Dudley’s major diplomatic interlocutors. While scholars have long recognized the significance of this tour for English theatre history, the international relations context that brought the actors to Europe has received little attention. Drawing on recent historical research exploring ‘cultural diplomacy’ in the early modern world, I reevaluate Leicester’s Men as agents of English ‘soft power’ who built international influence through pageantry, drama, and ritual gift-giving at a strategically significant diplomatic occasion.

EN:

This article proposes a new approach to Titus Andronicus's infamous ‘Fly-Killing Incident’ in act 3, scene 2 which prioritizes the role of the segmented fly as a character alongside the dismembered Andronici. Rejecting the critical tendency to read the diminutive figure as a passive emblem for interpreting humanity, this article explores the subjectivity of the fly as an individual with a particular focus on the implications of its murder and dismemberment. Whilst acknowledging its often-flippant critical history, this article asks, ‘What if we took the fly seriously’?

EN:

This essay explores the connection between The Winter’s Tale and The Faerie Queene, arguing that Shakespeare’s debt to Spenser is signalled by a previously unrecognized adaptation of the baby-and-bear episode from Book 6. Recognizing how Shakespeare both echoes and revises The Faerie Queene elucidates how The Winter’s Tale undermines the idea of essential identity and challenges social hierarchies. Echoes of The Faerie Queene in Shakespeare’s play and textual evidence that the same actor doubled the roles of Antigonus and Autolycus heighten Shakespeare’s criticism of the court and valorization of the power of art.

EN:

This article reexamines an overlooked manuscript play titled Alopichos and dated 1623. Composed by ‘Iames Cobbe Esquior’ while studying law at Gray’s Inn, the document warrants interdisciplinary reconsideration as a remnant of England’s changing legal and playing professions, in light of its ambiguous status as a piece of amateur law-school drama or aspirational entry to the commercial theatre. In staging the exploits of an ‘old crafti pettyfogger’ named Versuto, Alopichos offers an occupational spin on city comedy befitting an Inns of Court audience. That story, however, does not explain why the manuscript play advertises a performance at the Globe.

EN:

One of the central figures of John Milton’s A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle is that of the protagonist, the Lady, paralyzed in a chair arguing with the villain Comus. This article argues that while the Lady does argue with Comus from the chair, she is not necessarily paralyzed, and that her potential ability to move creates space for productions to emphasize her virtue, her agency, and the difference between her experience of the masque and that of her brothers. These possibilities connect the masque to early modern masquing and broader theatrical traditions that emphasized female agency and voice.

EN:

This note transcribes a letter written by Mary Ingram of Worcester sometime between 1607 and 1614, in which she describes going to see a play. The note provides some context about Mary, and her sister to whom she sent the letter, and what performance she might have gone to see, and what her letter reveals about early modern women as playgoers in the provinces.