Shakespeare After Theory

David Scott Kastan is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Among his publications are Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time, Staging theRenaissance (ed. with Peter Stallybrass), Critical Essayson Shakespeare's Hamlet, and The New History of EarlyEnglish Drama (ed. with John Cox). He is also a general editor of the Arden Shakespeare.

"This volume deserves to be placed at the forefront of some of the most promising developments in today's Shakespeare scholarship and criticism." -- Modern Language Quarterly"Kastan's study provides welcome new direction for Shakespearean study at a time when scholarly discussions have begun to stagnate.this timely study should offer new and stimulating directions for what my well be the next phase of Shakespearean scholarship." -- Sixteenth-Century Journal"... most readers will be grateful for his salutary insistence on and contributions to historical particularity, as well as his judicious criticism of "totalizing" methods." -- Renaissance Quarterly"Kastan's ability to frame theoretical issues memorably is, in fact, a distinguishing mark of Shakespeare After Theory." -- Journal of English and Germanic Philology"Kastan's book demonstrates wide reading in history as well as literature, much of it current and carefully documented. Recommended to upper-division undergraduates through faculty for the clarity of its presentation and the breadth of its scholarship." -- Choice

• Part 1 Introduction; Introduction; Part 2 Demanding History; Chapter 1 Shakespeare after Theory; Chapter 2 Are We Being Interdisciplinary Yet?; Part 3 The Text in History; Chapter 3 The Mechanics of Culture; Chapter 4 Shakespeare in Print; Chapter 5 “Killed with Hard Opinions”; Part 4 The Text as History; Chapter 6 “Proud Majesty Made a Subject”; Chapter 7 “The King hath many marching in his Coats,” or, What did you do in the War, Daddy?; Chapter 8 Is There a Class in This (Shakespearean) Text?; Chapter 9 Macbeth and the “Name of King”; Chapter 10 “The Duke of Milan / And his Brave Son”; Part 5 Coda; Chapter 11 “Publike Sports” and “Publike Calamities”;