"In this book, author Michael O'Connell argues that the crisis in religious expression precipitated by the Reformation had a particular effect on the drama of England. He interrogates the way the anti-theatrical writers of the 1570s skewered the stage with the term "idolatrous" and understands this in terms of the preoccupation with idolatry that characterizes Reformation culture. An immediate target of this anti-theatricalism were the traditional cycles of mystery plays, which were subjected to the earliest - and most successful - of anti-theatrical attacks. Providing a wider perspective on iconoclasm in the sixteenth century, the book explores why this theater was found transgressive and what this meant for the emergent secular theater of Shakespeare and his contemporaries."--BOOK JACKET.