Shakespeare and the Drama of his Time

Oxford Shakespeare Topics (General Editors Peter Holland and Stanley Wells) provide students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship, including some general anthologies relating to Shakespeare.

This book examines the plays of Shakespeare in their context as part of English Renaissance drama as a whole. Separate chapters deal with the origins of that drama; tragedy; comedy; the artistic conventions of play-writing in the period; and tragicomedy. 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.