Writing and Reading Royal Entertainments

This book examines the range of dramatic entertainments that were performed before Queen Elizabeth and James I, including dialogues spoken during visits to courtiers, speeches given in the tiltyard, songs sung on royal visits to London merchants, and court masques. It is the first to look in detail at the evidence provided by the surviving material texts. From the close collaboration between commissioning host and hired writer, to the varied interpretations imposed by copyists and publishers, entertainments were written and read within a complex social nexus: far from being royal propaganda, they reflected the distinct and sometimes competing agendas of monarchs, commissioning hosts, authors, publishers, scribal intermediaries, and readers.Writing and Reading Royal Entertainments explores this interpretative community through a range of texts: the Woodstock entertainment of 1575; the 1602 Harefield entertainment; Ben Jonson's work for the Jacobean court; and the Merchant Taylors' and Theobalds' entertainments.