Working Subjects in Early Modern English Drama

In what ways did the drama engage with contemporary discourses (social, political, economic, religious, and more) that defined the cultural meanings of work? How did players and playwrights define their own status with respect to the shifting boundaries between high status/low status, legitimate/illegitimate, profitable/unprofitable, skilled/unskilled, formal/informal, male/female, free/bound, paid/unpaid forms of work? Merchants, usurers, cloth workers, cooks, confectioners, shopkeepers, shoemakers, sheep shearers, shipbuilders, sailors, perfumers, players, magicians, witches, servants and slaves are among the many workers examined in this collection. Offering compelling new readings of both canonical and lesser-known plays in a broad range of genres (including history plays, comedies, tragedies, tragi-comedies, travel plays and civic pageants), this collection considers how early modern drama actively participated in a burgeoning, proto-capitalist economy by staging England's newly diverse workforce and exploring the subject of work itself.