Introduction: Errant Intelligence –The Devil’s Own

Abstract

The introduction firstly identifies the defining characteristics, important contexts, and devices of early modern metadrama; it then elaborates on popular conceptions of the informer-figure, and explores connections between them. Using significant examples, including from such coney-catching literature as Dekker’s Lantern and Candlelight, as well as Shakespeare and Jonson, it outlines how metadrama contains discourses of production and reception which mirror authors’ perceptions of their own authorship, their audiences, and ultimately the nature of early-modern society. In describing how the proliferation of metadramatic structures in the early modern theatre coincides with an increasing sense of the ubiquity of the informer, it develops the idea that this hauntingly present figure reflects a perception of the potential venality of the audience. Further it demonstrates how the figure of the informer can also become a shady representation of an emerging authorial voice.