A New Companion to Renaissance Drama provides an invaluable and wide-ranging exploration of the plays, the playwrights, the theater, and the culture of Early Modern England. This expansive guide to Renaissance plays and the world they played to is comprised of an outstanding collection of essays, many written by internationally known authorities across both prominent and emerging scholarly fields. Together they cover matters of theatrical representation within its material, historical, and cultural contexts, offering an inter-disciplinary approach to Renaissance drama, the most popular literary form of its time. Alongside close readings of selected passages from Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the authors offer original interpretations which will open up important paths of inquiry for conversations in the years ahead.

The New Companion offers a significantly increased coverage of the field, drawing on the latest research and current scholarship. The editors have organized the chapters by cultural context throughout, covering genre studies, theoretical applications, and material studies.

This volume will be a key text not only for scholars and graduate students of Renaissance drama and individual playwrights, and undergraduates studying theatre and English, especially Shakespeare, but also for general readers interested in drama.