The Tudor Play of Mind: Rhetorical Inquiry and the Development of Elizabethan Drama

Contrary to the widespread assumption that Elizabethan drama grows out of an essentially homiletic tradition, The Tudor Play of Mind proposes that many important plays—including such diverse works as Gorboduc, Endimion, Tamburlaine, The Spanish Tragedy, Every Man in His Humour, and Bussy D’Ambois—are informed by the ancient rhetorical tradition of posing questions and arguing them in utramque partem emphasized in humanist education. This accounts for the complex and often ambivalent respons...