The Routledge Companion to Shakespeare and Politics challenges and transforms our understanding of the politics of Shakespeare’s plays. Through up-to-date essays by historians, biographers, and Shakespeare critics, this Companion offers, first, a systematic examination of dominant institutions and emergent thought in Shakespeare’s society, then meditation on Shakespeare’s representation of these. Contributors consider the common law and the legally embattled royal prerogative, the functioning of the justice system, the impact of angry Tudor reformers, early capitalism, war, libels, rebellion, populism, religion, and cosmological ferment, as well as the class system, Machiavelli, Montaigne, and theatrical transgression. Opening chapters discuss the harsh politicisation of childhood Shakespeare, the subversive practices built into grammar school education, and the mythic retirement of Shakespeare to an idyllic Warwickshire. Combining social panorama with sharp critical readings, this synoptic approach allows identification of a political coherence to Shakespeare’s drama: identifying commonalities of vision, frequently critical and dissident, returning in different plays. The final section looks at Shakespeare’s reception within Marxism, feminism, racial theory, LGBTQ+ thought, and ecocriticism. The collection recovers a lost Shakespeare, of substantial political disaffection in very dark times, offering a challenging political redirection of Shakespeare studies, and perhaps a Shakespeare for our era. As an authoritative, state-of-the-art guide to this resonant topic, it will be of interest to anyone researching or studying Shakespeare.
