Marriage Relationships in Tudor Political Drama

Until now there has not been a monograph that examines marriage in Tudor political drama. In linking court interludes and popular plays by Marlowe, Lyly, Kyd, and Shakespeare to this inflammatory topic, Michael Winkelman argues that these plays produced substantial debate about the monarchy. Royal marriage affected the entire social order, and in an age without freedom of speech, court drama was often the best way to counsel the ruler about it. Winkelman interrogates the symbolic and mimetic ways that marriage was depicted: as both political metaphor and realpolitik quandary, matrimony remained contentious. The soap-opera story of Tudor nuptials thus provides the author with a reference point for an interdisciplinary study of theatre and politics. Drawing on historical records plus recent work in gender studies, audience-response theory, and anthropology, this book explores how in an age of flux, playwrights discussed controversies and propounded remedies; theatre played a pivotal role in shaping society.