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Shakespeare and the Nobility examines, for the first time, how Shakespeare was influenced by the descendants of the aristocratic characters in his early history plays. The Henry VI trilogy and Richard III are among the first plays in the English dramaturgy that reflect the lives and activities of the ancestors of sixteenth-century aristocrats. In a time when the upper classes of England were obsessed with family lineage and reputation, the salient question is how William Shakespeare, a socially inferior playwright and actor, handled the delicate matter of portraying the complex and often unattractive ancestors of the most powerful people of his day. In answer to this question, this study examines the lives of the historical figures and their descendants, presenting fresh readings of the early histories, and argues that Shakespeare consistently modified his portrayal of the ancestors with their descendants in mind.
Shakespeare and the Nobility examines how Shakespeare was influenced by the descendants of the aristocratic characters in his early history plays. The Henry VI trilogy and Richard III are among the first plays in the English dramaturgy that reflect the lives and activities of the ancestors of sixteenth-century aristocrats. In a time when the upper classes of England were obsessed with family lineage and reputation, the salient question is how William Shakespeare, a socially inferior playwright and actor, handled the delicate matter of portraying the complex and often unattractive ancestors of the most powerful people of his day. In answer to this question, this study examines the lives of the historical figures and their descendants, presenting fresh readings of the early histories, and argues that Shakespeare consistently modified his portrayal of the ancestors with their descendants in mind.
Shakespeare's largely misunderstood narrative poems contain within them an explosive commentary on the political storms convulsing his country The 1590s were bleak years for England. The queen was old, the succession unclear, and the treasury empty after decades of war. Amid the rising tension, William Shakespeare published a pair of poems dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton: Venus and Adonis in 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece a year later. Although wildly popular during Shakespeare's lifetime, to modern readers both works are almost impenetrable. But in her enthralling new book, the Shakespearean scholar Clare Asquith reveals their hidden contents: two politically charged allegories of Tudor tyranny that justified-and even urged-direct action against an unpopular regime. The poems were Shakespeare's bestselling works in his lifetime, evidence that they spoke clearly to England's wounded populace and disaffected nobility, and especially to their champion, the Earl of Essex. Shakespeare and the Resistance unearths Shakespeare's own analysis of a political and religious crisis which would shortly erupt in armed rebellion on the streets of London. Using the latest historical research, it resurrects the story of a bold bid for freedom of conscience and an end to corruption that was erased from history by the men who suppressed it. This compelling reading situates Shakespeare at the heart of the resistance movement.
William Shakespeare explores political survival as a question of interaction at court in King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Through a discussion of authority as an element that is distinct from power, this book offers a new perspective on the importance of acts of persuasion and the contribution the late tragedies make to Shakespeare’s portrayal of monarchy. It argues that the most productive uses of the material power to judge or reward are those that reinforce royal authority and establish the monarch at the centre of the web of noble relationships. In the late tragedies, rulership is exercised at court. It acquires a nature of its own as the interaction of powerful and potentially powerful individuals among the nobility. The persuasive exercise of authority complements the tangible power that is founded on the monarch’s material resources, so that consent to the monarch’s supremacy is obtained through various discourses of justification and the performance of the monarch’s social role. Shakespeare’s combination of emotional intimacy with political concerns becomes central to the tragedies of these three plays when the failure to establish control over power and authority leads to the breakdown of established values and political traditions.
This book is an easy-to-read retelling of William Shakespeare's classic romance "The Two Noble Kinsmen." People who read this retelling first will find the original play much easier to understand.