‘Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so, | Lest child, child’s children, cry against you woe!’

The final chapter offers a conclusion through a reflection on some of the major concerns of the book. Centrally, this chapter returns to the figure of the child and its affective presence on stage, the early modern contexts through which children were both celebrated and disenfranchised, and the unique position that Shakespeare takes in supporting and developing their role on the early modern stage. The book demonstrates that the child was a vital figure in the development of early modern drama, not through their presentation in children’s playing companies but through the plays’ exploration of what children mean to those who love them, as well as those who destroy them. Considering the shape of history, the images of responsibility through which societies organize their value systems, the structures of power and responsibility through which parents determine both their love and their separation, the book concludes with the feelings that shape the children of the past, whether recollected in tranquillity or violence.

Aesthetics · Art · Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Drama · Feeling · Literature · Power (physics) · Presentation (obstetrics) · Psychoanalysis · Tranquillity · Value (mathematics) · Computer Science · Irish and British Studies · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology