[citation needed] Closet dramas were sometimes published (or circulated in manuscript form), to include dramatis personae and elaborate stage directions, allowing readers to imagine the text as if it were being performed.
[citation needed] The academic Marta Straznicky in 2004 described the form as "part of a larger cultural matrix in which closed spaces, selective interpretive communities, and political dissent are aligned.
[4] Beginning with Friedrich von Schlegel, many have argued that the tragedies of Seneca the Younger in the first century AD were written to be recited at small parties rather than performed.
[5] Although that theory has become widely pervasive in the history of theater, there is no evidence to support the contention that Seneca's plays were intended to be read or recited at small gatherings of the wealthy.
[4] Fulke Greville, Samuel Daniel, Elizabeth Cary, Sir William Alexander, and Mary Sidney wrote what now might be considered as closet dramas (although there were not aware of the term.
Thomas Killigrew is an example of a stage playwright who turned to this form of writing when his plays could no longer be produced during this period; he was in exile from England during the English Civil War.
Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle-on-Tyne (1623-1673), author of fourteen folio volumes,[3] explored writing in the closet drama form during her exile[citation needed] and became one of the best known women playwrights due to her interest in philosophical nature.