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The Media Players: Shakespeare, Middleton, Jonson, and the Idea of News
Stephen Wittek
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The Media Players: Shakespeare, Middleton, Jonson, and the Idea of News builds a case for the central, formative function of Shakespeare's theater in the news culture of early modern England. In an analysis that combines historical research with recent developments in public sphere theory, Dr. Stephen Wittek argues that the unique discursive space created by commercial theater helped to foster the conceptual framework that made news possible.
Dr. Wittek's analysis focuses on the years between 1590 and 1630, an era of extraordinary advances in English news culture that begins with the first instance of serialized news in England and ends with the emergence of news as a regular, permanent fixture of the marketplace. Notably, this period of expansion in news culture coincided with a correspondingly extraordinary era of theatrical production and innovation, an era that marks the beginning of commercial theater in London, and has left us with the plays of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Middleton.
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Cover
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Title
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Copyright
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Acknowledgments
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Contents
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1 Early Modern Drama and the Idea of News
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Theater and News Culture: A Brief History
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The Idea of News
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The Proto-Public Sphere
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Public Making and Printed News
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2 The Winter’s Tale, News, Truth, and Belief
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Shakespeare and News
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Autolycus, Broadsheets, and Mercury
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The Meaning of a Balladeer on a London Stage in 1610
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Ballads, Pamphlets, Monstrous Births, and Singing Fish
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Shakespeare and the Problem of Belief
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“Times News” and New Forms of Knowledge
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3 A Game at Chess and the Making of a Theatrical Public
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Middleton and News
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News from Spain, to Court, to Print, to Stage
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Hispanophobia and Hispanophilia
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Theater as News Event
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4 The Staple of News and the Invention of Media Criticism
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Jonson and News
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The Apostrophized Public
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Jonson and the Problem of Interpretation
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A News Industry from the Early Modern Near Future
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News and Mock News
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Epilogue: News Is What They Say It Is
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Appendix: Names Frequently Used in Butter Newsbooks, 1623–1626
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Notes
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Bibliography
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Critical Editions
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Contemporary Documents
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Contemporary Publications
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Secondary Sources
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Index
Citable Link
Published: 2015
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
- 978-0-472-07281-1 (hardcover)
- 978-0-472-12134-2 (ebook)
- 978-0-472-05281-3 (paper)