Publishing Misfortunes: Recording Performance at the Inns of Court

Abstract

This essay investigates the motivation behind the print publication of The Misfortunes of Arthur, privileging its functionality as a record of court performance rather than the political significance of its circulation. Examination of the playbook’s distinctive and extensive paratextual apparatus reveals the authors’ involvement with print publication. In considering the bibliographic presentation of the dumbshows, this essay finds overlooked parallels between Misfortunes and Stuart court masques and thus repositions the role which Misfortunes, and Inns drama more broadly, played in the developing relationship between early modern English print and performance.

Decoding Misfortunes: Advice to Elizabeth I and Her Subjects

“…Romola Nuttall explains that publication 'offered the composers of these sequences opportunities to explain their full significance to readers, thus demonstrating their skill and ingenuity'. 29 Spectators had to decode the symbolism of the dumbshows by themselves, whereas the playbook elucidated their meaning for readers.…”