Kingship, Madness, and Masculinity on the Early Modern Stage: Mad World, Mad Kings

This book provides a fascinating study into the history of kingship, madness and masculinity that was acted out on the early modern stage. Providing students of early modern history, theatre and performance studies and disability studies with interesting case studies to inform their upper level seminars and research.

Throughout the volume the authors engage with the field of disability studies to show how disability and mental health were portrayed and what that tells us about the period and the people who lived in it. Showing students, a new dimension of early modern Europe.

The chapters uncover how, as the early modern understanding of mental illness re-focused on human, rather than supernatural, causes, the public stages became important arenas for playwrights, actors, and audiences to explore expressions of madness and to practice diagnoses. Enabling students from multiple disciplines such as the history of medicine, the history of theatre and performance and the history of early modern Europe to see the how attitudes formed and changed around kingship, madness and masculinity in this period.