A 'Dark' Period in the Seventeenth Century: Drama in the Caroline Age

The present paper intends to discuss the reasons for the long neglect and undervaluation of drama in the reign of Charles I (1625-1649), a period which saw eleven years of the king’s personal rule without a parliament, the Civil war and the closing of the theatres in 1642 for a period of eighteen years. I will examine and evaluate its reappraisal from the 1980s onwards, following the publication of Martin Butler’s seminal work, Theatre and Crisis (1984), whose global resonance led to a new wave of interest in Anglo-American scholarship. As a matter of fact the scholar demonstrated that drama in that period was politically meaningful and engaged in debating serious and pressing issues of the day. Finally, I will be concentrating on Richard Brome, one of the leading playwrights of the period, whose critical afterlife perfectly mirrors the parable of the reception of Caroline drama.