Broadside ballads and bawdy ditties : Music in the plays of Richard Brome.

This thesis examines the role of music in four plays, The Northern Lass, The City Wit, The Weeding of Covent Garden and The English Moor by the Caroline dramatist, Richard Brome. The use of music in Brome's plays has received little scholarly investigation despite the sudden research interest in the playwright, and, derived from a gap in existing scholarship in the area, my thesis builds on previous research to ascertain the importance of music to these plays. It has been argued that Brome relies on persisting conventions and lacks originality in terms of his music use. However, I consider Brome's use of music to be much more complex. This thesis argues that Brome uses music in a highly sophisticated way, going beyond the traditions set out by his predecessors and experimenting with the new and emerging musical styles of the period to appeal to contemporary fashion. This study covers a wide range of musical styles and explores the songs of the professional singer, the accomplished musician, the ballad peddler, and the everyday singer to paint an informative picture of how music was presented on the stage. A number of songs were written specifically for the plays, but many of them were printed elsewhere either before the plays were first staged and/or after, which emphasises their popularity outside of the plays as well as in them. The history of these songs is documented extensively in the thesis along with a discussion about their importance to the plot of die plays. Each chapter is focussed on a separate play and the plays are discussed in order from the earliest to the latest staged.