Stephen J. Greenblatt, the pioneer of the new historicist approach to literature, is currently John Cogan Professor of Humanities at Harvard University and the author of the recent bestselling life of Shakespeare, Will in the World.

'Greenblatt writes with modest elegance, is a superb scholar and researcher, and deserves his status as the first voice in Renaissance studies today.' - Virginia Quarterly Review

• 1. Introduction 2. Learning to Curse 3. Marlowe, Marx and Anti-Semitism 4. Filthy Rites 5. The Cultivation of Anxiety 6. Murdering Peasants 7. Psychoanalysis and Renaissance Culture 8. Towards a Poetics of Culture 9. Resonance and Wonder. Index

Stephen J. Greenblatt, the pioneer of the new historicist approach to literature, is currently John Cogan Professor of Humanities at Harvard University and the author of the recent bestselling life of Shakespeare, Will in the World.

'Greenblatt writes with modest elegance, is a superb scholar and researcher, and deserves his status as the first voice in Renaissance studies today.' - Virginia Quarterly Review

• 1. Introduction 2. Learning to Curse 3. Marlowe, Marx and Anti-Semitism 4. Filthy Rites 5. The Cultivation of Anxiety 6. Murdering Peasants 7. Psychoanalysis and Renaissance Culture 8. Towards a Poetics of Culture 9. Resonance and Wonder. Index