Throughout this book I have tracked a history of the perception of a social phenomenon inscribed in a significant cultural form of the age. My purpose here has not been to offer comprehensive readings of these plays, but rather to open up an aspect of their dramaturgy which has been previously obscured. To some extent theatrical representation works as a space for resistance, and for both writers the theatrical exposure of the link between informing and metadrama sets up an interpretative space between extra-theatrical authority and that which is exhibited in representation. The subject of this book has been the ways in which both manage that space. One of the most significant issues to arise from this study has been the extent to which the roles of author and informer intersect in negotiating its parameters. In one form or another this connection animates the very different kinds of metadrama present in Shakespeare's and Jonson's writing, either as something to be exploited or fi rmly refuted. In both ways it exposes the forms and pressures of the times on the process of writing for the theatre.

Shakespeare's metadrama often seems to emerge almost extempore within the frame of a narrative, from a spontaneous dramatic moment, natural inner performance or dramatic inset. Where this happens, as it does in the cases of Hamlet, Falstaff and to some extent even Prospero, it tends towards a blurring of the boundaries between author and audience, thereby occluding to some extent the dramatist's own role in the process of authorship. This may have been troubling for contemporary audiences, and Hamlet's hyperbolic example displays an interpreter wavering between an uncertain relationship with the potentially homicidal nature of the structure of authority and the questionable demands of a supernatural imperative. However, in the potentially murderous world of early modern politics, the suggestion that the production of meaning is, in fact, a collective practice can work to the benefit of the author. Compared to Jonson's form in the matter, Shakespeare's apparent avoidance of the threat of prosecution may be one reason for his more subtly nuanced metadramatic representation of the potential presence of the informer in the audience.