"If Then the World a Theatre Present..." Revisions of the Theatrum Mundi Metaphor in Early Modern England

To picture the world as a theatre has been a common procedure since antiquity. In early modernity, however, the theatrum mundi became a particularly prominent metaphor, especially in England where it was used by playwrights as well as by theologians opposed to the professional theatre. This volume examines how and why the uses of the metaphor proliferated at that time, drawing on plays, pamphlets, other textual sources as well as on images.