TY  - BOOK
AU  - Kiernan, Victor 
TI  - Shakespeare: Poet and Citizen
SN  - 9780860913924
U1  - 822.33 
PY  - 1993///
CY  - London
PB  - Verso, 
KW  - Political and social views
KW  - Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
KW  - Literature and society
KW  - Politics and literature
KW  - Great Britain
KW  - Political plays, English
KW  - Political poetry, English
KW  - Social problems in literature
N1  - 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
N2  - 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
ER  -