Epistolary Courtiership and Dramatic Letters: Thomas Overbury and the Jacobean Playhouse (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781474483384)

Through an analysis of the career of the eminent courtier Sir Thomas Overbury, Epistolary Courtiership and Dramatic Letters re-examines what is meant by courtiership in the Jacobean period. With a particular focus on the years between 1609 and 1613, the book brings together many of the letters surrounding the scandal leading to Overbury's murder and provides an examination of epistolarity in the context of humanist and legal learning. Defining key themes of social mobility, homosociality and the legal power of James VI and I, it exposes the mechanisms by which men rose at his court and provides a context for a new reading of contemporary dramatic texts by Shakespeare, Webster and Chapman. The book argues that the changing performance of courtiership at James's court, the wider knowledge of that reflected in contemporary letters and consequently shifting attitudes, all alter the performance of courtiership in the playhouse.

Author: Jackie Watson
ISBN-10: 1474483380
ISBN-13: 9781474483384
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/01/2026
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.60d