Professional playwrights : Massinger, Ford, Shirley & Brome / Ira Clark.

Print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgments; 1 The Caroline Professionals; The Profession; A Perspective on the Professionals; A Sociopolitical Context; A Social and Family Context; Socialization; 2 Massinger's Tragicomedy of Reformation; The Disaffections of Massinger's Privileged Patrons; Social and Political Accommodation; The Art of Redemptive Conversion; Reflection and Reciprocity in THE PICTURE; 3 Ford's Tragedy of Ritual Suffering; The Gentility of John Ford; Political and Social Resignation; Ceremonial Style; Ritual Roles in THE BROKEN HEART.

4 Shirley's Social Comedy of Adaptation to DegreeShirley's Reverence for Degree; Degree's Prerogatives, Abuses, and Standards; The Clean Wit of Playful Conformity; Adapting Roles in HYDE PARK; 5 Brome's Comedy of Types and Inversions; The Revisionary Potential of Brome's Backgrounds; Political and Social Questioning; Satiric Parodies and Inversions; Generating Experimental Reform in THE ANTIPODES; Epilogue; Notes; Works Cited; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Z.

The most neglected of the English Renaissance playwrights are the major Carolines -- Philip Massinger, John Ford, James Shirley, and Richard Brome. Writing in the 1620s and 1630s, always in the shadow of their great precursors, Shakespeare and Jonson, they have often been dubbed mere purveyors of slick, escapist sensationalism who avoided the great issues of their day and turned away from the impending breakdown of English society. Ira Clark's revisionist book shows us these dramatists and their time whole, particularly through analysis of their treatment of sociopolitical issues -- issues tha.

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