The Tower of London in English Renaissance Drama

Download or read book The Tower of London in English Renaissance Drama written by Kristen Deiter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-02-23 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tower of London in English Renaissance Drama historicizes the Tower of London's evolving meanings in English culture alongside its representations in twenty-four English history plays, 1579-c.1634, by William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and others. While Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I fashioned the Tower as a showplace of royal authority, magnificence, and entertainment, many playwrights of the time revealed the Tower's instability as a royal symbol and represented it, instead, as an emblem of opposition to the crown and as a bodily and spiritual icon of non-royal English identity.