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Full Description
Through an analysis of the career of the eminent courtier Sir Thomas Overbury, Epistolary Courtiership and Dramatic Letters re-examines what is meant by courtiership in the Jacobean period. With a particular focus on the years between 1609 and 1613, the book brings together many of the letters surrounding the scandal leading to Overbury's murder and provides an examination of epistolarity in the context of humanist and legal learning. Defining key themes of social mobility, homosociality and the legal power of James VI and I, it exposes the mechanisms by which men rose at his court and provides a context for a new reading of contemporary dramatic texts by Shakespeare, Webster and Chapman. The book argues that the changing performance of courtiership at James's court, the wider knowledge of that reflected in contemporary letters and consequently shifting attitudes, all alter the performance of courtiership in the playhouse.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Series Editors' Preface
A Note on Letter Transcriptions
Introduction: 'Common Secrets, Common Dangers': The Origins of a 'Tragical' Courtier
1. The Path to Power at the Jacobean Court: Overbury's Rise
2. Secretary, Conduit and Minion: Overbury's Courtly Zenith
3. The Fall of Icarus: Overbury's Imprisonment
4. Royal Prerogative and the Role of Counsel in The Winter's Tale
5. Defining Successful Courtiership in The Duchess of Malfi
6.Chapman's Changing Worlds: From Bussy D'Ambois to The Revenge
Afterword
References
Index
