Article: The end of the English history play in Perkin Warbeck.(Critical essay)

John Ford's Perkin Warbeck has been called a "fascinating oddity" for its revival of the Elizabethan English history play at a moment when the history play had long been out of favor. (1) What makes Perkin Warbeck an anomaly, an "oddity," is that it participates in this subspecies of drama a full generation after its rapid decline and relative disappearance from the stage. Still, I believe we can understand Ford's play only by situating it not merely as an anomaly but also as a product of this decidedly fallow period for the English history play. It is not coincidental to the play's significance that for the years between 1610 and the closing of the theaters in 1642, we ...

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