George Peele

David Bevington is Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and Professor in English Language and Literature and Comparative Literature, University of Chicago, USA.

• Contents: Introduction; Part I Lord Mayor's Pageants, Court Entertainments, Occasional Poems: Entertainments for court and city, A.R. Braunmuller; 'Many a 'Herdsman' more disposde to morne': Peele, Campion, and the Portugal expedition of 1589, Hugh Gazzard. Part II The Arraignment of Paris: Gifts and reasons: the contexts of Peele's 'The Araygnement of Paris', Louis Adrian Montrose; The triumph of chastity: form and meaning in The Arraignment of Paris, Andrew von Hendy; Pastoral poetry: the vitality and versatility of a convention, Hallett Smith; Elizabethan epideictic drama: praise and blame in the plays of Peele and Lyly, R. Headlam Wells. Part III The Old Wives Tale: The Protestant context of George Peele's 'pleasant conceited' 'Old Wives Tale', Frank Ardolino; Homely matter and multiple plots in Peele's 'Old Wives Tale', John D. Cox; 'Seeing is believing': action and narration in 'The Old Wives Tale' and 'The Winter's Tale', Philip Edwards; Old wives' tales, George Peele, and narrative abjection, Mary Ellen Lamb; 'Soft, who have we here?': the dramatic technique of 'The Old Wives Tale', Joan C. Marx; The hearth and the cell: art in 'The Old Wives Tale', Susan T. Viguers. Part IV The Battle of Alcazar: 'Alcazar': the text and the sources, David Bradley; Moors, villainy and 'The Battle of Alcazar', Peter Hyland; The Battle of Alcazar, Eldred Jones. Part V Edward I: 'Edward I': in peace triumphant, fortunate in wars, A.R. Braunmuller. Part VI David and Bathsheba: Peele's 'David and Bethsabe': reconsidering Biblical drama of the long 1590s, Annaliese Connolly; The House of David in Renaissance drama: a comparative study, Inga-Stina Ewbank; 'What words, what looks, what wonders?': language and spectacle in the theatre of George Peele, Inga-Stina Ewbank. Part VII Peele and Titus Andronicus: Mutius: an obstacle removed in Titus Andronicus, Brian Boyd; Name index.

'... Bevington's critical anthology is a worthwhile and substantial collection of essays on the life and work of this early and influential dramatist. ...' Sixteenth Century Journal