Presents critical essays which discuss the writers and literary works of the Elizabethan era, and includes a chronology of the cultural, political, and literary events of the period.

Introduction / Harold Bloom -- Theatres and companies: the context of the professional stage-James Burbage and John Lyly / Peter Happe -- New tragedies for old / Martin Wiggins -- Marlowe and the Jades of Asia / Eugene M. Waith -- "Doctor Faustus" / Martha Tuck Rozett -- 'Italian masques by night': Machiavellian policy and ovidian play in "Edward II" / Patrick Cheney -- Artificial comedy and popular comedy: Shakespeare's inheritance / M.C. Bradbrook -- Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, and the fictive navarre / Paul J. Voss -- Shakespeare's and Jonson's view of public theatre audiences / Alvin B. Kernan -- Licensed fools: the 1598 watershed / Richard Dutton.