Elizabethan Age Culture Scholarly Database

Elizabethan Age Culture Scholarly database sources: Cartwright, Kent. "Language, Magic, the Dromios, and the Comedy of Errors." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 47.2 (2007): 331-2A. Platinum Periodicals. ProQuest. 2009 The author argues that Shakespeare's comical use of witchcraft in the Comedy of Errors both parodies notions of witchcraft yet also addresses cultural anxieties raised by real accusations and witchcraft trials during the era.

Cartwright's argument is that "words and thoughts in the Comedy of Errors unexpectedly acquire a certain magical agency and that the magical and the fantastical also acquire a certain potential for truth" (Cartwright 331). Through magic, so long as it is regarded as imaginary, there is a potential for a metaphorical truth that can surpass literal truth, like the drama itself. Freer, Coburn. "John Donne and Elizabethan economic theory." Criticism 38.4 (1996): 497- 520. Platinum Periodicals. ProQuest. 4 Apr.

2009 Examines the creation of a new, mercantile and money-hungry economy during the era and how this is reflected in the poetry of John Donne. Hirschfeld, Heather. "Performing Early Modern Trauma from Shakespeare to Milton." Rev. of: Performing Early Modern Trauma from Shakespeare to Milton. Shakespeare Quarterly 57.4 (2006): 487-489,497. Platinum Periodicals. ProQuest. 4 Apr.

2009 http://www.proquest.com/ Discussion of the trauma the controversies of succession created in Elizabethan times, and how this was reflected in drama -- questions of who would succeed Henry VIII and rapid shifts from Protestantism to Catholicism are read in Performing Early Modern Trauma from Shakespeare to Milton as a kind of national devastating loss that caused mental as well as political wounds amongst the populace that the drama strove to heal. Levin, Carole. "The Subject of Elizabeth: Authority, Gender, and Representation." Rev.

of: The Subject of Elizabeth: Authority, Gender, and Representation. Shakespeare Quarterly 58.2 (2007): 248-249,272. Platinum Periodicals. ProQuest. 4 Apr. 2009 http://www.proquest.com/ This review of the scholarly book the Subject of Elizabeth: Authority, Gender, and Representation provides valuable insight into how Elizabeth I was perceived as both male (representing the divine body of the king) and female in Renaissance culture. MacKenzie, Clayton G. "Marlowe's Grisly Monster: Death in Tamburlaine, Parts One & Two. "Dalhousie Review 87.1 (2007): 9-24. Platinum Periodicals. ProQuest. 4 Apr.

2009 http://www.proquest.com/ This examines the career of the playwright Christopher Marlowe, whose career predated Shakespeare. Marlowe's heroes were drawn in broad, bloody brushstrokes, and the article examines the physical rendition of death in this play, which was meant to both validate yet unsettle the audience's religious sensibilities about morality. Ambiguity about the afterlife would carry over into Shakespeare's works. Moore, Roger E. "The spirit and the letter: Marlowe's Tamburlaine and Elizabethan religious radicalism. "Studies in Philology 99.2 (2002): 123-151. Platinum Periodicals. ProQuest. 4 Apr.

2009 http://www.proquest.com/ An examination how Marlowe's plays often use religion as a theme, but contain irreligious implications, reflective of the strains of atheism, mysticism, and even heretical Christian sects during the time, referring to "the heated religious milieu of mid-seventeenth-century London…many people claimed to be visited by God and instructed to accomplish some religious sign or undertaking" (Moore 123). Websites Alchin, L.K. Elizabethan Era. Updated March 20, 2008. 4 Apr 2009.

http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/index.htm Published by a British historical organization, sponsored by the British government, the site provides an introduction to food, music, weaponry, sports and daily life of the age. "Elizabethan England in the Time of Romeo and Juliet." Montgomery Schools. 4 Apr 2009.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/SCHOOLS/WJHS/mediactr/englishpathfinder/romeo/ Published by a school, but provides detailed information into mundane aspects of daily life, like the sewer system, combined with extensive biographies of important historical figures like the historical and court favorite of Elizabeth I Sir Walter Raleigh. "General Characteristics of the Renaissance." CUNY-Brooklyn. 4 Apr 2009.

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/ren.html An examination of the Great Chain of Being, a concept of the Renaissance about the harmony of the created order that had great importance to thinkers of this era. Long, William J. The Elizabethan Age: 1550 -- 1620. Outlines of English and American Literature. 4 Apr 2009. http://www.djmcadam.com/elizabethan-age.html Review of common themes and concerns in Elizabethan literature and how they reflected historical concerns of the time. Secara, Maggie. Life in Elizabethan.