Shakespeare and Early Modern Political Thought

By David Armitage and Conal Condren and Andrew Fitzmaurice

Drama : Shakespeare | Literary Criticism : Regional, Ethnic, Genre, Specific Subject

Cambridge University Press
Publication date: September 2009

ISBN: 9780511629747

Digital Book format: PDF (Adobe DRM)

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This is the first collaborative volume to place Shakespeareís works within the landscape of early modern political thought. Until recently, literary scholars have not generally treated Shakespeare as a participant in the political thought of his time, unlike his contemporaries Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney. At the same time, historians of political thought have rarely turned their attention to major works of poetry and drama. A distinguished international and interdisciplinary team of contributors examines the full range of Shakespeareís writings in order to challenge conventional interpretations of plays central to the canon, such as Hamlet; open up novel perspectives on works rarely considered to be political, such as the Sonnets; and focus on those that have been largely neglected, such as The Merry Wives of Windsor. The result is a coherent and challenging portrait of Shakespeareís distinctive engagement with the characteristic questions of early modern political thought.