Dr Charles Cathcart

Professional biography

I grew to love Renaissance plays as a private reader and as a visitor to London’s fringe performances of old plays during the 1980s and 1990s. I owe a special debt to the editors of modern scholarly dramatic texts because I first encountered many of the plays I most enjoy through their work. Although I later had the chance to study at doctoral level and have since engaged in scholarly debate, mostly as an independent scholar, I look back with affection to those early encounters with Renaissance drama.

I am intrigued by the ways in which writers interact with others. I like to explore the ways in which poets and playwrights respond to the words of fellow authors. And I am fascinated by the ways in which institutional connections – with playing companies and publishers, for example – affect the work of writers.

Much of this has had a focus in John Marston’s plays and poems. Marston was the subject of my doctoral studies and also of my book, Marston, Rivalry, Rapprochement, and Jonson (2008). Because ‘The War of the Theatres’ was a topic at one time notorious for over-development by excitable literary scholars, this book reflects upon the decorum of academic debate as well as upon the plays and playwrights involved.

I am very interested in questions of authorial agency, in literary borrowings and allusions, and in the playing companies that flourished in the early Jacobean years. I have enjoyed exploring the popular writings published by Leonard Becket from around 1610 to the early 1630s. Becket’s miscellanies and other publications are packed with unattributed snippets of verse from published poets. They are a kind of adventure playground for the scholar. No less fascinating are the little-known writings of Thomas Heywood in the final decade of his life.

Charles may be reached at charles.cathcart@open.ac.uk.