Theatres and Encyclopedias in Early Modern Europe

This book analyzes the discourses and practices that defined Renaissance theater as related to the development of encyclopedic texts and vice versa. Looking at what theater meant to medieval and Renaissance writers and critics William West sets Renaissance drama within one of its cultural and intellectual contexts. Although the study focuses on the Renaissance it also draws on and analyzes substantial classical and medieval material. It is of equal interest to intellectual historians theater historians and students of early literature.