The Online Books Page

Drama -- History and criticism

Here are entered works on criticism of the drama as a literary form. Works on criticism of the drama as presented on the stage are entered under Dramatic criticism. Collections of reviews of dramatic performances are entered under Theater -- Reviews.

See also what's at your library, or elsewhere.

• Drama
• Criticism
• Literature -- History and criticism
• History and criticism

• Drama -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.
• Drama, Medieval -- History and criticism
• Historical drama -- History and criticism
• Monodramas -- History and criticism
• Mysteries and miracle-plays -- History and criticism
• Passion-plays -- History and criticism
• Political plays -- History and criticism
• Religious drama -- History and criticism
• Television plays -- History and criticism
• Drama -- 19th century -- History and criticism
• Drama -- 20th century -- History and criticism

• Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, by August Wilhelm von Schlegel, trans. by John Black (Gutenberg text)
• The Theory of the Theatre, and Other Principles of Dramatic Criticism (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1910), by Clayton Meeker Hamilton (Gutenberg text)
• A Book About the Theater (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1916), by Brander Matthews (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)

• An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (third edition; Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1918), by John Dryden, ed. by Thomas Arnold and William T. Arnold (multiple formats at archive.org)
• European Theories of the Drama (Cincinnati: Stewart and Kidd, 1918), ed. by Barrett H. Clark (multiple formats at archive.org)

• Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages: Essays in the Origin and Early History of Modern Drama (originally published 1965; open access edition Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), by O. B. Hardison (HTML and PDF files with commentary at Project MUSE)
• Des Essais Dramatiques Imités de l'Antiquité au XIVe et au XVe Siècle (in French; Paris: A. Durand, 1852), by Alexis Chassang
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust

• Miracle Plays and Sacred Dramas: A Historical Survey (London: Trübner and Co., 1880), by Karl von Hase, ed. by William Walrond Jackson, trans. by A. W. Jackson (page images at HathiTrust)

• Ancient Mysteries Described: Especially the English Miracle Plays, Founded on Apocryphal New Testament Story, Extant Among the Unpublished Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: Printed for W. Hone, 1823), by William Hone, illust. by George Cruikshank
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Bibliographical and Textual Problems of the English Miracle Cycles (London: A. Moring, 1914), by W. W. Greg
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only
• Stage Properties, Costumes, Scenery and Music of the English Miracle Plays (University of Illinois masters thesis, 1906), by Allie V. Parks
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust; US access only

• Records of Early English Drama: York (2 volumes; Toronto et al.: University of Toronto Press, c1979), ed. by Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson
  • Volume 1 (records): multiple formats at archive.org
  • Volume 2 (appendixes and other editorial matter): multiple formats at archive.org

• The Staging of the "Miracles de Nostre Dame Par Personnages" of MS. Cangé (New York: Institute of French Studies, Columbia University, c1933), by Dorothy Penn (page images at HathiTrust)

• Shakespeare's History Plays: The Family and the State (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c1971), by Robert B. Pierce
  • PDF files with commentary at Ohio State Press
  • PDF at Ohio State

• Discourses of Empire: Counter-Epic Literature in Early Modern Spain (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), by Barbara Simerka (PDF at PSU)

• Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c2005), by Jill Dolan (page images at HathiTrust)

• Politics, Ethics and Performance: Hélène Cixous and the Théâtre du Soleil (Melbourne: Re.press, 2016), by Hélène Cixous, ed. by Lara Stevens (PDF with commenrary at re-press.org)

• After Brecht: British Epic Theater (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1994), by Janelle G. Reinelt (page images at HathiTrust)

• Miracle Plays and Sacred Dramas: A Historical Survey (London: Trübner and Co., 1880), by Karl von Hase, ed. by William Walrond Jackson, trans. by A. W. Jackson (page images at HathiTrust)

• Mainstream Culture Refocused: Television Drama, Society, and the Production of Meaning in Reform-Era China (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press of Hawaii, c2010), by Zhong Xueping (PDF with commentary at Hawaii)
• The Pursuit of Justice (free online edition; original edition published 2006), by Kermit L. Hall and John J. Patrick (HTML and PDF with commentary at annenbergclassroom.org)

• Pop City: Korean Popular Culture and the Selling of Place (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2018), by Youjeong Oh (PDF and EPub with commentary at Cornell Open)

• Aspects of Modern Drama (New York et al.: Macmillan, 1914), by Frank Wadleigh Chandler
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Modern Drama in Europe (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), by Storm Jameson (page images at HathiTrust)

• Modern Drama in Europe (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), by Storm Jameson (page images at HathiTrust)
• Aspects of Modern Drama (New York et al.: Macmillan, 1914), by Frank Wadleigh Chandler
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust

Items below (if any) are from related and broader terms.

• Of Dramatic Poesie, by John Dryden (HTML at Toronto)
• Plays, Movies, and Critics (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1993), ed. by Jody McAuliffe (page images at HathiTrust)
• Opera and Drama, by Richard Wagner, trans. by William Ashton Ellis (HTML at Wayback Machine)
• Our Stage and its Critics (1910), by Edward Fordham Spence (Gutenberg text)

• Drury's Guide to Best Plays (Washington: Scarecrow Press, 1953), by Francis K. W. Drury (page images at HathiTrust)
• Viewpoints in Modern Drama: An Arrangement of Plays According to Their Essential Interest (Chicago: American library association, 1925), by Francis K. W. Drury (page images at HathiTrust)

• Musical Design in Sophoclean Theater (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press; University Press of New England, c1996), by William C. Scott (multiple formats at Dartmouth Digital Publishing)
• Musical Design in Aeschylean Theater (Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press; Published by University Press of New England, 1984), by William C. Scott (multiple formats at Dartmouth Digital Publishing)

• Three Tragedies: Bertram; Bellamira; The Apostate (London:, 1818), by Charles Robert Maturin and Richard Lalor Sheil (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Pocket University (23 volumes; Garden City, NY: Pub. for N. Doubleday, Inc. by Doubleday, Page and Co., 1924), ed. by Bliss Perry, Thomas L. Masson, Henry Van Dyke, Hardin Craig, Asa Don Dickinson, George Iles, Hamilton Wright Mabie, and Lyman Abbott (page images at HathiTrust)

• On Editing Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Dramatists (Philadelphia: Pub. for the Philip H. and A. S. W. Rosenbach Foundation by the University of Pennsylvania Library, 1955), by Fredson Bowers (page images at HathiTrust)

• Drury's Guide to Best Plays (Washington: Scarecrow Press, 1953), by Francis K. W. Drury (page images at HathiTrust)
• Annual Magazine Subject-Index (including a dramatic index for most years) (partial serial archives)

• The Dramatic Index (partial serial archives)
• The Drama (partial serial archives)

• Staging Consciousness: Theater and the Materialization of Mind (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c2002), by William W. Demastes (page images at HathiTrust)
• Acting like Men: Gender, Drama, and Nostalgia in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1998), by Karen Bassi (page images at HathiTrust)
• Shakespeare's Patterns of Self-Knowledge (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c1972), by Rolf Soellner
  • PDF files with commentary at Ohio State Press
  • PDF at Ohio State
• Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare (New York et al: McGraw-Hill Book Co., c1966), by Norman N. Holland (page images at Florida)

• The Social Significance of the Modern Drama, by Emma Goldman (HTML at pitzer.edu and Berkeley)

• Drury's Guide to Best Plays (Washington: Scarecrow Press, 1953), by Francis K. W. Drury (page images at HathiTrust)

• The Craftsmanship of the One-Act Play (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., c1923), by Percival Wilde (page images at HathiTrust)
• How's Your Second Act? (New York: P. Goodman Co., 1918), by Arthur Hopkins, contrib. by George Jean Nathan (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Play-Making: A Manual of Craftsmanship (1912), by William Archer (Gutenberg text)
• Playwriting: A Handbook for Would-Be Dramatic Authors, by A Dramatist (second edition; London: The Stage Office, n.d.), by Jerome K. Jerome (multiple formats at archive.org)
• The Science of Playwriting (New York: Brentano's, c1925), by Moses L. Malevinsky, contrib. by Owen Davis (page images at HathiTrust)
• Shakspere's Five-Act Structure: Shakspere's Early Plays on the Background of Renaissance Theories of Five-Act Structure From 1470 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1947), by T. W. Baldwin (page images at HathiTrust)
• Toward a Theater of the Oppressed: The Dramaturgy of John Arden (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1995), by Javed Malick (page images at HathiTrust)
• Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, by August Wilhelm von Schlegel, trans. by John Black (Gutenberg text)
• The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations (Franklin, OH: James Knapp Reeve, 1921), by Georges Polti, trans. by Lucille Ray, contrib. by James Knapp Reeve (multiple formats at archive.org)

More items available under broader and related terms at left.