Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction – aliens and the English in London
- 2 Discovering the alien in Elizabethan moral drama
- 3 Accommodating the alien in mid-Elizabethan London plays
- 4 Incorporating the alien in Shakespeare's second tetralogy
- 5 Being the alien in late-Elizabethan London plays
- Postscript: Early modern and post-modern alien excursions
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Discovering the alien in Elizabethan moral drama
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 June 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction – aliens and the English in London
- 2 Discovering the alien in Elizabethan moral drama
- 3 Accommodating the alien in mid-Elizabethan London plays
- 4 Incorporating the alien in Shakespeare's second tetralogy
- 5 Being the alien in late-Elizabethan London plays
- Postscript: Early modern and post-modern alien excursions
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The plays studied in this chapter represent various stances within the first ‘alien stage’ as outlined in Chapter 1. The anonymous Wealth and Health, Ulpian Fulwell's Like Will to Like, and George Wapull's The Tide Tarrieth No Man demonstrate the early knowledge of alien presence pervading English material and ethical culture between the late 1550s and the early 1580s. Even though the writing desires and seems to will a pure Englishness, the alien cannot be shaken off. For a play to talk about religious corruption at home is for it to recognize the influence of non-English practices; to discuss domestic economic problems is to engage with the relative dealings of alien merchants and craftspersons and to investigate the nature of bullion to cross borders; to question the government is to read Englishness against the examples of foreign princes and potential invaders. All these negotiations between setting up Englishness and wrestling with the alien push the boundaries of the first ‘alien stage’. In one version of this stage of English–alien relationship, cracks in the make-up of a country are blamed unequivocally on alien presence; passages, scenes, or the main thrust of a play may therefore concentrate rather simply on attacking alien bodies, fashions, or habits.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Aliens and Englishness in Elizabethan Drama , pp. 23 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009