The repertory of the Rose : a contribution to an historical materialist critique of early modern English drama

Abstract

Using the extant canon of the Rose theatre as its data set, this study proposes that early modern English drama articulated a contemporary consciousness of the social and economic changes taking place as a consequence of the transition to the nascent workshop-capitalist mode of production.  In its analyses of those changes, this work draws attention to the ways in which early modern English drama let it be understood that the foundations of the emergent mode of production lay in social relations rather than market forces.

Having identified that conventional literary methodologies are unable to give a full account of the significance and influence of contemporary social and economic transformations, this inquiry turns to historical materialism as an explanatory force.  Historical materialism recognises social being’s determination of consciousness, and understands that changes in the means of production produce concomitant changes in social relations.  This study argues that it is therefore the methodology best equipped to convey the full complexity of a shift in the mode of cultural as well as economic production in early modern England.

The work supports these contentious through its analysis of the representation of work, the money function, alcohol use, beggary, violence and class relations on the stage of the Rose theatre.

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