Inscribing the time : Shakespeare and the end of Elizabethan England / Eric S. Mallin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mallin, Eric Scott.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

New historicism ; 33.

The New historicism: Studies in cultural poetics ; 33

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Contemporary England.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

Literature and history--England--History--16th century.

Literature and history.

England.

History.

Great Britain--History--Elizabeth, 1558-1603.

Great Britain.

Historicism in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 276 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [1995]

Summary:

Combining the resources of new historicism, feminism, and postmodern textual analysis, Eric Mallin reveals how contemporary pressures left their marks on three Shakespeare plays written at the end of Elizabeth's reign. Close attention to the language of Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night reveals how Shakespeare registered the consciousness of transition and ending that underlay England's social fabric at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The plays further register in complex ways the cultural presence of social or psychic crises. Troilus reflects the rebellion of the Earl of Essex and the failure of the courtly, chivalric style. Hamlet resonates with the danger of the bubonic plague and the difficult succession history of James I. Twelfth Night is imbued with nostalgia for an earlier period of Elizabeth's rule, when her control over religious and erotic affairs seemed more secure.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

0520086236

OCLC:

30895912