Archeology and Stage Play Literary History: Square Pegs, Round Holes
The literary and early stage history of Elizabethan period plays is a fascinating field. Among the reasons are the huge challenges identifying, sorting and making sense of the evidence. There is so much we want to know, yet the evidence is so sparse. Scholars in recent years have added considerably to our knowledge using two principal approaches. Some, like Tiffany Stern, have intensively reexamined documents that were already available, finding evidence there that previously has been overlooked. Others, like David Kathman, Alan Nelson and Eva Griffith, have found in the archives previously overlooked documents.
But a third source of new evidence has also become available to us in recent years. Archeologists have been excavating the foundations of Elizabethan period theaters and other relevant sites. Here we are looking at actual physical artifacts from the time itself. They surely have something to tell us. Let’s look here at three examples, the Rose, the Curtain, and New Place.
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