The Parnassus Plays

The Parnassus Plays are a trilogy of university plays, written in English rather than Latin at the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, possibly by multiple authors. They offer a unique perspective on the student experience, on literary aspiration and economic reality, and on the London literary scene at the height of the English Renaissance. One of the central characters is based on the prose satirist, Thomas Nashe, and the plays comment extensively on other contemporary writers, including Shakespeare. These plays are presented for the first time in a modernised text which reveals their sparkling satire, while addressing issues of economic precarity that will be immediately familiar to a modern audience.