Shakespeare

Contents: Introduction. Section 1: Socio-cultural Backgrounds: 1. Monarchy and authority. 2. Gender, family and society. 3. Expanding worlds and new peoples. Section 2: Shakespeare and/in the Theatre: 4. Drama, the theatre and stagecraft. 5. Shakespeare and his contemporaries. 6. The forms of Shakespearean drama. Section 3: Shakespeare Ever After: 7. Shakespeare adaptations. 8. Shakespeare and criticism. Recommended Reading. Index.

This book presents an array of contexts that operated in Shakespeare's plays. These include ideas about kingship and authority; gender roles; prejudices, antipathies and stereotypes regarding national, racial, gender or ethnic identities; views about the world outside England or about the classical world; and the world of the theatre, among many others. The book analyses how these contexts are reflected, examined, interrogated and sometimes subverted in his plays.