The Shoemaker's Holiday (New Mermaids) - Softcover

Dekker, Thomas; Harris, Mr. Jonathan Gil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0713673788 ISBN 13: 9780713673784

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2008

Synopsis

'I know the trade: I learned it when I was in Wittenberg'

Thus speaks Lacy, the gentleman who disguises himself as a simple shoemaker in order to win his true love, the grocer's daughter Rose. The Shoemaker's Holiday is one of the most engaging citizen comedies of the 17th century. Written and first performed at much the same time as Hamlet, it has an unexpected affinity with Shakespeare's tragedy: both feature a leading character who has spent time in Wittenberg, where he has learned something that has changed him. But whereas Hamlet's Wittenberg philosophy steers him into the realm of the individuated self, Lacy's Wittenberg trade directs him and his fellows into the world of the collectively crafted commodity. In the process, the play offers fascinating insight into the evolution of fashion and the growth of consumer culture in newly capitalist London.

This new student edition contains a lengthy new Introduction with background on the author, date and sources, the play's major preoccupations, and stage history.

The editor, Jonathan Gil Harris, is Professor of English at George Washington University. he is the author of Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic, Sick Economies, and Untimely Matter in the Time of Shakespeare.

About this title

Synopsis:

One of the most popular Elizabethan plays, The Shoemaker's Holiday is one of the earliest examples of 'citizen comedy' plays set in London and dealing with the dominant concerns of metropolitan society - class mobility, sexual intrigue and the pursuit of wealth and status. Dekker uses the colourful and vivid backdrop of London's streets, taverns, public buildings, exposing urban existence, its folly and corruption. This student edition has been completely re-edited and revised with a new estended Introduction providing historical information about Dekker's life and career, the date of the play, the layout of medieval and Elizabethan London, and important literary and theatrical sources or co-texts. New Mermaids editions offer: * Modernized versions of the play text edited to the highest textual standards * Fully annotated student editions with obscure words explained on each page * Critical, contextual and staging insight

About the Author:

Jonathan Gil Harris is Professor of English at George Washington University, where he teaches Shakespeare, Renaissance Drama, and Critical Theory. He is the author of numerous essays on the drama and culture of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He has also co-edited, with Natasha Korda, Staged Properties in Early Modern English Drama (Cambridge).

About this edition

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0713673788
• ISBN 13: 9780713673784
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 160