Overview

Shakespeare is usually set apart from his contemporaries, in kind no less than quality. This book sees Elizabethan drama as drawn together by a shared need to deal with contradictory pressures from heterogeneous audiences, censorious authorities, profit driven managers, and authors looking for classic status and social esteem. The power of poetry gives these contradictory purposes an intensity and scope that speaks directly to our own motives, aspirations, and evasions. But this connection must be shallow if we do not face the strangeness as well as the accessibility of this repertory. Starting from texts rather than systems, experience rather than explanation, Hunter argues that only by treating the unfamiliar and even the distasteful with equal seriousness can we allow the familiar in Shakespeare its historical separateness as well as its imaginative intimacy.

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9780198122135

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Hunter's comments are forceful and original...I find it remarkable that Hunter's literary history should read like a series of critical essays on complicated topics. --Renaissance Quarterly<br> It makes a huge contribution, overcoming the formidable problems of combining stage history with history of drama, and of putting Shakespeare into perspective without diminishing his eminence. --Va Quarterly<br> No one is better qualified to carry out such a project, and George Hunter does it extremely well indeed. His discussion of the closely interwoven formal traditions is critically astute; his treatment of both major and minor authors is fair-minded and very readable. Personally I am extremely gratified that Hunter finally decided to go ahead and complete this project, demonstrating that there is still considerable value in the skillful practice of literary history. --Studies in English Literature<br> [The book] redirects attention to a wide range of plays that are ignored in most critical writings and illustrates the value of studying many major works in the context of their generic connections. It provides a ready reference handbook of information about plays. It throws all kinds of interesting sidelights on the plays of Shakespeare. In addition, the book maintains a strong narrative flow and is full of the kind of pithy comments that provide topics for papers and challenges for dissertations, so it should be of great use to graduate students and teachers. --Shakespeare Quarterly<br>

Author Information

G. K. Hunter is Emily Sandford Professor Emeritus at Yale University.

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