First published in 1998, this volume explores the period 1585-1649, identifying it as rich in innovative drama which challenged the boundaries between social, political and cultural activities.

1. Breaking Boundaries: Politics and Play on the Renaissance Stage. 2. Theatre and Punishment: Spectacles of Death and Dying on the Stage. 3. Theatre and Cruelty: Renaissance Notions of Alterity in Roman Tragedies. 4. Theatre and Carnival License: Exploring the Boundaries of Comic Freedom and Tragic Excess. 5. Theatre and Transgression: Secularizing the Sacred and Sacralizing the Secular. 6. Theatre and the Scaffold: Social Drama and Public Spectacle in 1649.