Plays and Puritans

The collection of historical essays examines British attitudes toward art and theater, tracing how Puritanical hostility and popular indifference shaped drama, painting, and architecture. It critiques sentimental nostalgia for a golden past, defends rigorous historical inquiry against prudish censorship and reactionary romanticizing, and argues that moral decay and domestic looseness help produce political and cultural upheaval. Through close readings of controversies between religious reformers and dramatists, the essays explore the intersection of religion, aesthetics, and public life, urging that honest attention to contentious facts yields clearer lessons for contemporary cultural debates.