'Household business' : domestic plays of early modern England /

Comensoli's study of both tragic and comic domestic plays is essential for an understanding of the subject. Comensoli (Wilfrid Laurier Univ., Canada) combines a careful review of previous scholarship on the origin of the drama with thorough analyses of individual plays, using the most recent studies of 16th- and early 17th-century England. By analyzing treatments of older stories such as those of Noah, Griselda, and Sophonisba, as well as 17th-century English plots such as Thomas Heywood's A Woman Killed with Kindness, the author shows how the plays treat the themes of marriage codes, the roles of women and the source of their power, and order in society as well as in the home. This is an excellent job, well done, on a significant subject that has suffered from narrow treatment in the past. Full notes and bibliography; clear and readable style. Upper-division undergraduate and above. J. R. Buchert; emeritus, University of North Carolina at Greensboro