SOURCE: An introduction to Jacobean Dramatic Perspectives, The University Press of Virginia, 1972, pp. 3-6.

In the following introduction, Kirsch distinguishes Jacobean drama from that of the Elizabethan period, focusing on the rise of Fletcherian tragicomedy, satiric drama, and the private theater.

There are many recognized differences between Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, but we still often mis-read plays from both periods by reducing them to a single paradigm. There is, I think, a need to preserve distinctions, and in particular to appreciate some of the distinctive attributes of Jacobean plays. The first decades of the seventeenth century witnessed a number of developments which were ultimately to change the whole character of English drama, and though their effects upon Jacobean dramaturgy were gradual and complex, they were also profound, impinging upon all the major dramatists of the period, including Shakespeare. It is the purpose of this study to illuminate some...