Note on the Text ix
Acknowledgments xi
Part I The Life 1
1 Who was William Shakespeare? 3
2 Writing 23
3 Religion 47
4 Status 61
5 Theatre 79
Part II The Plays 97
6 Comedies: Shakespeare’s Social Life 99
The Comedy of Errors 99
The Taming of the Shrew 108
Love’s Labour’s Lost 119
A Midsummer Night’s Dream 125
The Merchant of Venice 132
Much Ado About Nothing 138
As You Like It 146
Twelfth Night, Or What You Will 153
Measure for Measure 159
7 English and Roman Histories: Shakespeare’s Politics 177
Richard II 177
1 Henry IV 182
Henry V 192
Richard III 198
Julius Caesar 204
Coriolanus 210
8 Tragedies: Shakespeare in Love and Loss 223
Romeo and Juliet 223
Hamlet 232
Othello 241
King Lear 252
Macbeth 260
Antony and Cleopatra 266
9 Romances: Shakespeare and Theatrical Magic 277
The Winter’s Tale 277
The Tempest 284
Index 295
Dympna Callaghan is William L. Safire Professor of ModernLetters at Syracuse University and President of the ShakespeareAssociation of America, 2012 13. She is the editor of theArden Shakespeare Language and Writing Series and coeditor, withMichael Dobson, of the Palgrave Shakespeare Studies series. Herpublications include Shakespeare Without Women (2000),The Taming of the Shrew: A Norton Critical Edition (2009),Shakespeare s Sonnets (2007), The Impact ofFeminism in English Renaissance Culture (2006), and Romeoand Juliet: Texts and Contexts (2003).
[A] highly readable introduction to the Life and Works,in the best tradition of that ancient and worthy genre. It isfurthermore a piece of New Historical criticism at its sober best With such impressive scholarly credentials, [Callaghan] ismore than well equipped to provide original and perceptiveintroductions to Shakespeare s life and works. But this is nomere mechanical life-and-works primer, like the dozens alreadyavailable on the market and on college bookshop shelves This [is a] substantial work of criticism, presented as anintroduction to Shakespeare the man and his work, but amounting toconsiderably more than mere introduction. Dympna Callaghan meetsadmirably the challenge she set herself in the bold question of thetitle: who was William Shakespeare? For she shows us very wellindeed who he was and is andwhy. (Cercles, 1 June 2014) Featured in Times Literary Supplement - 25 October 2013 "Dympna Callaghan's lucid and well-structured textbook allowsstudents to see the plays in their context." (Times LiterarySupplement, 25 October 2013) "The book should interest readers who are curious aboutShakespeare's life and the social and political history of England.Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates throughfaculty; general readers." (Choice, 1 August 2013)
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