Webster
Subtitle: The Tragedies (Analysing Texts)
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: April 14, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 278
ISBN-13: 9780333801291
Subjects: Drama texts: 16th to 18th centuries; Plays & playwrights: 16th to 18th centuries; c 1600 to c 1700; Webster, John, 1580?-1625?; Literary Criticism; Plays / Drama; English; British Isles; Drama; English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Performing Arts / Theater / History & Criticism; Webster, John; 1580?-1625?; Criticism and interpretation; Examinations; Study guides; Tragedy; Webster, John,
Description: "Webster's theatre was also Shakespeare's theatre - but their tragedies are very different. Webster has a reputation for angst-ridden, obsessive and debased characters and the creation of a sick and decaying world. Yet his heroines are amongst the strongest characters, male or female, in Jacobean drama.".

"This book shows how Webster's plays portray a world in which patriarchal, aristocratic politics are dissected as diseased. Through close analysis of key moments, scenic and dramatic structure, characterisation, theatricality and imagery, this book enables students to appreciate Webster's individual contribution to our dramatic heritage. Through such textual reading, we learn how he uses drama to debate contemporary political and social issues, most explicity those of gender.

The book provides students with effective reading, critical and analytical tools with which to approach Webster's plays as not only dramatic scripts for our time, but also of their own time, and thus as rivals to Shakespeare's major tragedies."--BOOK JACKET.