Approaches to Teaching English Renaissance Drama (review)

Abstract

It is understandable why Kendrick must focus on Renaissance drama, given his interest in Carnival. But he could do much more to demonstrate the important ways that commonwealth ideologies and utopian concepts intersect with carnivalesque practices on the Shakespearean stage. ere is nevertheless something about his overreaching, like that of Marlowe’s own stage heroes, that sustains the reader’s interest until the very end. Kendrick’s theoretical acuity and originality of thought shine through Utopia, Carnival, and Commonwealth in Renaissance England on almost every page, even if he slips momentarily into abstraction or when a (somewhat too common) typo throws a wrench into his already elliptical prose. is work proves equal in intellectual weight and ambition to many of its influences, including the work of Louis Marin, Richard Halpern, Fredric Jameson, and Raymond Williams. It deserves to share shelf space with these authors as an account of utopian politics and literature.