University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Power, propaganda and subversion: Chivalry on the English Renaissance stage

Hadorn, Peter Thomas

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/19518

Description

Title
Power, propaganda and subversion: Chivalry on the English Renaissance stage
Author(s)
Hadorn, Peter Thomas
Issue Date
1989
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Cole, Howard
Department of Study
English
Discipline
English
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • Theater
  • Literature, English
Language
eng
Abstract
Unlike chivalric romances in poetry and prose, plays depicting armored knights guided by a feudal code of chivalry were popular for only a brief period during the Renaissance. Yet this chivalric drama exerted an important influence in society, alternately supporting or undermining attempts by the monarch and nobility to employ chivalry as a means of consolidating their power. Quite popular during the 1570s and '80s, dramatic representations of chivalric romances in professional theaters correspond to the use of chivalry as ideological propaganda in Tudor festivals. In the late 1590s and early 1600s, however, chivalric drama became less romantic and more cynical, corresponding to the declining use of chivalric propaganda in courtly entertainments and the growing abuses at court. In spite of a brief revival of chivalric drama for Prince Henry, these plays disappear altogether from the English stage after his death in 1612.
Type of Resource
text
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/19518
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 1989 Hadorn, Peter Thomas

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Graduate Dissertations and Theses at Illinois PRIMARY
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