"The Wished Aire": Biblical Plagues and the Early Modern Playhouse

At a time when the outbreak of plague was frequently attributed to divine providence, and associated with poor air quality, Elizabethan playhouses were identified by their detractors as sites of contagion. Contemporary playwrights responded to such charges in their drama. In Thomas Lodge and Robert...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Etudes anglaises 2018-10, Vol.71 (4), p.491-506
Main Author: Preedy, Chloe Kathleen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Allusion
Bible
Dramaturgy
Early modern period
Elizabethan period
Greene, Robert (1558?-92)
Heroism & heroes
Imagery
Literary characters
Literary criticism
Literary devices
Lodge, Thomas (1558-1625)
Modern literature
Morality
Narrative techniques
Narratives
Physicians
Plague
Plot (Narrative)
Theater
Theater history
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Summary:At a time when the outbreak of plague was frequently attributed to divine providence, and associated with poor air quality, Elizabethan playhouses were identified by their detractors as sites of contagion. Contemporary playwrights responded to such charges in their drama. In Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene’s A Looking- Glass for London and England (c. 1589), a late Elizabethan play that dramatizes the story of the Biblical plagues sent against ancient Nineveh, Lodge (a physician and dramatist) and his co-author Greene explore their theatre’s capacity to evoke the threat of plague through expansive imagery and sensory effects, before transforming this noxious atmosphere into the “wished aire” of redemption.
ISSN:0014-195X
1965-0159