Shakespeare: Poet and Citizen

By: Kiernan, VictorMaterial type: TextTextPublication details: London: Verso, 1993Description: ix, 261 pISBN: 9780860913924; 0860913929Subject(s): Political and social views | Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 | Literature and society | Politics and literature | Great Britain | Political plays, English | Political poetry, English | Social problems in literatureDDC classification: 822.33
Contents:
Part I - A Time Out of Joint Part II - The Histories Part III - Experiments Part IV - The Comedies Part V - Life Unfolding
Summary: In this book the distinguished historian Victor Kiernan makes a case for seeing Shakespeare as a writer profoundly sensitive to the great social and political upheavals through which he lived. Shakespeares poetic and dramatic achievement, Kiernan argues, was not something which transcended his environment but was directly enlarged by his civic consciousness and his critical reactions to a changing social fabric. Shakespeares phase of dramatic activity coincides with the first challenges to the institution of monarchy. Kiernan analyses the cycle of History plays in the light of the demise of feudal allegiances and the emergence of the modern state apparatus. He shows how the far-reaching transformations in social hierarchy which simultaneously began to take place are crucial to an understanding of the Comedies, in which confusion of identity, disguise and cross-dressing are central. And he examines the ways in which womens roles are affected by this nascent individualism, especially in relation to the ideas of romantic love around which the Comedies revolve. Shakespeare: Poet and Citizen draws a vivid portrait of the outstanding dramatist of modernity. Lucid, scholarly and absorbing, it will be a rich resource for both students and the general reader.
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Including Bibliography & Index

Part I - A Time Out of Joint
Part II - The Histories
Part III - Experiments
Part IV - The Comedies
Part V - Life Unfolding

In this book the distinguished historian Victor Kiernan makes a case for seeing Shakespeare as a writer profoundly sensitive to the great social and political upheavals through which he lived. Shakespeares poetic and dramatic achievement, Kiernan argues, was not something which transcended his environment but was directly enlarged by his civic consciousness and his critical reactions to a changing social fabric.

Shakespeares phase of dramatic activity coincides with the first challenges to the institution of monarchy. Kiernan analyses the cycle of History plays in the light of the demise of feudal allegiances and the emergence of the modern state apparatus. He shows how the far-reaching transformations in social hierarchy which simultaneously began to take place are crucial to an understanding of the Comedies, in which confusion of identity, disguise and cross-dressing are central. And he examines the ways in which womens roles are affected by this nascent individualism, especially in relation to the ideas of romantic love around which the Comedies revolve.

Shakespeare: Poet and Citizen draws a vivid portrait of the outstanding dramatist of modernity. Lucid, scholarly and absorbing, it will be a rich resource for both students and the general reader.

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