Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England

Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England asks both why Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were so preoccupied with drugs and poisons, and why critics, supporters, and writers of plays adopted a chemical vocabulary to describe the effects of the theater on audiences. Through original medical and literary research, Pollard shows that the link between pharmacy and theater in the period demonstrates a model of drama in which plays exert a material impact on spectators' bodies. This book argues that the power of the theater in early modern England, as well as the striking hostility to it, stems from the pervasive contemporary idea that drama altered the body as well as the mind.