Ungodly Delights

"Ungodly Delights" is a study of opposition to the theatre in England between 1576, the year in which James Burbage launched his new commercial enterprise, and 1633, when publication of William Prynne's "Histriomastix" brought a complex of tensions long inherent in the theatre controversy to a political climax and turned a traditional form of social complaint into a bitter ideological confrontation. While the chronological frame of reference is not such that is touches directly upon the dynamic upheavals of the 1640s, this reading of the controversy underlines the importance of puritan opposition to the theatre and other cultural pastimes as part of the long history of an ideological conflict which eventually led to the overthrow of the Stuart monarchy.