(Oxford History of English Literature) G. K. Hunter-English Drama 1586-1642_ The Age of Shakespeare-Oxford University Press, USA (1997).pdf

ENGLISH DRAMA 1586-1642

THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE

G. K. HUNTER

CLARENDON PRESS ∣ OXFORD

1997

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TO SHELAGH

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LEWIS. I'm working on 'English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama', for

OHEL. JOY. Oh hell? LEWIS. The Oxford History of English Literature. JOY. Sixteenth

century. You got the easy one. LEWIS. You think so? William Nicholson, Shadowlands (

1989) Act I, pp. 32-3

Of the difficulties that lie in the way of an editor [of Elizabethan dramatic records] -- at least

if he regards his work as historical rather than romantic -- not the least is to avoid writing a

general history of the Elizabethan stage. There is no such thing as a clearly defined historical

field; facts are linked to other facts in all directions, and investigation merely leads to further

and further questions. Every custom and every institution at once rises the problem of its

own origin; every corporation and every social fact is influenced by other corporations or

reacts on other social facts. Thus to treat intelligibly any of the several dramatic companies

at the end of the [sixteenth] century, or any series of events in the dramatic history of the time

demands a knowledge of the constitution of other companies and of the sequence of other

events such as at present can hardly be said to exist. W. W. Greg, Preface to Henslowe's

Diary , Part II ( 1908)

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