English drama

English drama reached its height during the English Renaissance, during the reign of Elizabeth I. This period includes not only the justifiably famous William Shakespeare, but also Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and John Webster. Some have hypothesized that the the English Renaissance paved the way for the sudden dominance of drama in English society, arguing that the questioning mode popular during this time was best served by the competing characters in the plays of the Elizabethan dramatists.

Various types of plays were popular at this time. Ben Jonson, for example, was often engaged to write masques, ornate plays where the actors wore, yes, masks. The three types most often studied today are the histories, the comedies, and the tragedies.

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