Shakespeare Minus 'Theory'

Demonstrating and defending a method of close reading and historical contextualisation of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, this collection of essays by Tom McAlindon combines a number of previously published pieces with original studies. The volume includes six interpretative studies, all but one of which involve challenges to radical readings of the plays involved, including Henry V, Coriolanus, The Tempest, and Doctor Faustus. The other three essays are critiques of the claims and methods of radical, postmodernist criticism (new historicism and cultural materialism especially); they illustrate the author's conviction that some leading scholars in the field of Renaissance literature and drama, who deserve credit for shifting attention to new areas of interest, must also be charged with responsibility for a marked decline in standards of analysis, interpretation, and argument. Likely to provoke considerable debate, this stimulating collection is an important contribution to Shakespeare studies.

Contents: Preface; Taking stock: radical criticism of Shakespeare; Testing new historicism: 'invisible bullets' reconsidered; War and peace in Henry V; Perfect answers: religious inquisition, Falstaffian wit; Cultural materialism and the ethics of reading: or, the radicalising of Jacobean tragedy; Shakespearean tragedy; Coriolanus: an essentialist tragedy; The discourse of prayer in The Tempest; Marlowe plus and minus 'theory': the case of Doctor Faustus; Notes; Appendix; Index.

Tom McAlindon works in the Department of English at the University of Hull, UK. His main research interest is in Renaissance drama. He has published widely and is the author of Shakespeare and Decorum (1973), English Renaissance Tragedy (1986), Shakespeare's Tragic Cosmos (1991), Divine in Show: Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus (1995), and Shakespeare's Tudor History (2002).