Overview

This book presents a cultural analysis of King James I of England’s evolving perspectives regarding witchcraft and his influence upon the “witch plays” of Renaissance England. Early on during the Stuart monarch's reign in Scotland (1588-1591), James directed a fevered hunt of witches whom he believed were trying to assassinate him, an event that later came to be known as “The North Berwick Affair.” He played a direct role in the interrogations, personally approving and, at times, overseeing the horrific torture of some of the accused. In 1597, the monarch also penned a compendium of witchcraft lore entitled Daemonologie, which acted as a manual for identifying, interrogating and punishing witches.Once the King ascended to the British throne, London-based dramatists endeavored to please their monarch with plays that catered to his interests while at the same time subverting his beliefs in witchcraft lore. The King’s works and involvement in witchcraft trials are notably referenced, sometimes satirically, in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Ben Jonson’s Masque of Queenes, Thomas Middleton’s The Witch, and Dekker, Rowley and Ford’s The Witch of Edmonton—all of which respond to the King’s philosophical engagement with witchlore.Through the analysis of four Jacobean “witch-plays” and an examination of King James's role within the witchcraft debates and his involvement with contemporaneous witch trials, this work shows how the monarch’s various publications on witchlore transmuted stage and culture. Taken as a group, these dramas provide a window into the newly emergent humanism of the Renaissance world and its struggle with gender-driven categories—especially regarding the cultural praxis of accusing, torturing and executing “witches.”

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9781527575561

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Dawn Adrienne-Saliba is a poet, playwright and theatre director who holds a PhD in Early Modern Drama from the State University of New York and an MFA in Musical Theatre Writing from New York University. She is currently undertaking postgraduate studies in Archaeology at the University of Malta, where she is investigating performative liminality in the Hypogeum of Ħal Saflieni. She is also the President of MALTA-ARCH, a collective working to preserve the natural, cultural, and archaeological heritage of the country of Malta.

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