Shakespearean Negotiations

The author has been at the centre of a shift in literary interpretation towards a critical method that places cultural creation in historical context. This book exemplifies the method in an examination of how collective beliefs and experiences are shaped, transferred from one medium to another, concentrated in manageable form, and offered to the public on the stage. As well as providing a new way of understanding Shakespeare, the book is an original analysis of a cultural process. The first chapter introduces the methods and purposes of the new historicism, and later chapters consider the types of cultural negotiation that shape the four main genres of Shakespearean history, comedy, tragedy and romance. Particular reference is made to “Henry IV”, “Henry V”, “Twelth Night”, “King Lear” and “The Tempest”, and the book includes analyses of such aspects of early modern culture as exorcism, cross-dressing, colonial propaganda and martial law codes.