Department of English Publications
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
Spring 2006
Volume
59
Issue
1
Journal
Renaissance Quarterly
First Page
285
Last Page
286
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.1353/ren.2008.0221
Abstract
The no-nonsense title of Tanya Pollard’s Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England led me at first glance to imagine a dry tome cataloguing and exploring the medicine chest of the Renaissance English stage. This book is no such thing: not only is it meticulously researched and a compelling read, but beneath its surface its argument stretches well beyond the limited promise of its title. Pollard delves deep into the period’s antitheatrical debates, making sense of their angst by parsing theater’s more-than-metaphorical link to poisons and narcotics, and the possibility of its affective, transformative power over its audiences.
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Notes
This article has been published in a revised form in Renaissance Quarterly https://doi.org/10.1353/ren.2008.0221. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. © 2006 Renaissance Society of America.