Shakespeare and the Question of Theory

The theoretical ferment which has affected literary studies over the last decade has called into question traditional ways o thinking about, classifying and interpreting text. Shakespeare has been not just the focus of a variety of divergent critical movements within recent years, but also increasingly the locus of emerging debates within, and with, theory itself.

This collection of essays, written by distinguished and powerful critics in the fields of literary history and Shakespeare studies, is intended both for those interested in Shakespeare and for those interested more generally in the emerging debates within contemporary criticism and theory.

The essays – whether focused on the reading of individual plays or encompassing larger issues within the corpus – demonstrate the range and depth of carious critical approaches to Shakespeare, including recent developments – feminist, deconstructive, historical and political.

In the individual essays various questions being raised in the contemporary theoretical debate are brought to bear on the reading of the plays and poems. Conversely, many of the assumptions of contemporary theory are in turn questioned in the light of a re-examination of these texts.

Together the essays raise for debate a whole range of central issues both in the criticism of Shakespeare and in the larger field of thinking about and theorizing about literature itself.