Spatial Representations and the Jacobean Stage

"Spatial Representations and the Jacobean Stage reminds us that theatre takes place on a stage-space, using spatial means of representation. For early modern theatregoers, the spatial messages created in the theatre had much to say about the transformations of English society in the opening decades of the seventeenth century. West examines various spatial aspects of the rapidly changing era between the death of Elizabeth I and the accession of Charles I: social mobility, rural enclosure, wandering populations, sea travel, localized empirical thought, focusing upon the ways such momentous transformations of Jacobean society were debated on the London stages. Dramas by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Tourneur and Webster are scrutinized for their treatment of these controversial themes. In particular, the book gives careful attention to the staging techniques used to give tangible expression to the spatial issues dramatized in the Jacobean theatre."--Jacket.