Drama, Performance and Debate ─ Theatre and Public Opinion in the Early Modern Period

Early modern theatre was a visual matter, even though the authors wrote plays which were mainly meant to be read. But whether they wrote their plays to have them performed or not, authors could use comedies, tragi-comedies or tragedies to influence public opinion, to make a statement in a debate, or to convey explicit or implicit lessons that they carried out or had carried out by linguistic, rhetorical and theatrical means. How explicit they were in expressing their views depended on the characters of the authors or the circumstances in which they wrote. Questions regarding the opinion-forming and opinion-following functions of theatre, the means by which authors and theatre makers expressed their ideas, and the role of theatre and plays in public debate are discussed from various angles. Such questions refer not only to literary plays, but also to other forms of theatrical event, such as royal entrances.

Jan Bloemendal (1961) is a Senior Researcher at the Huygens ING (The Hague) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research interests include early modern drama, Erasmus, bilingualism and emblematics. He published on Dutch drama and edited G.J. Vossius's Poeticae institutiones.Peter G.F. Eversmann (1955) is Associate Professor at the Department of Theatre Studies of the University of Amsterdam and editor-in-chief of the FIRT/IFTR series Themes in Theatre - Collective Approaches to Theatre and Performance. His research topics include theatrical space, theatrical events and empirical audience and reception research.Elsa Strietman is a Senior Lecturer in Dutch in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages in the University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow, Graduate Tutor and Vice President of Murray Edwards College (formerly New Hall) in the University of Cambridge. She specializes in Dutch rhetoricians’ drama.