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Citizen Shakespeare

Freemen and Aliens in the Language of the Plays

  • Book
  • © 2005

Overview

Authors:
  1. John Michael Archer
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Part of the book series: Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500–1700 (EMCSS)

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Table of contents (4 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xii
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  2. Introduction

    • John Michael Archer
    Pages 1-22

  3. Comedy: Civil Sayings

    • John Michael Archer
    Pages 23-70

  4. History: Civil Butchery

    • John Michael Archer
    Pages 71-120

  5. Tragedy: What Rome?

    • John Michael Archer
    Pages 121-168

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 169-211
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Keywords

About this book

Shakespeare was not a citizen of London. But the language of his plays is shot through with the concerns of London 'freemen' and their wives, the diverse commercial class that nevertheless excluded adult immigrants from country towns and northern Europe alike. This book combines London historiography, close reading, and recent theories of citizen subjectivity to demonstrate for the first time that Shakespeare's plays embody citizen and alien identities despite their aristocratic settings. Through three chapters, the book points out where the city shadows the country scenes of the major comedies, shows how London's trades animate the 'civil butchery' of the history plays, ans explains why England's metropolis becomes the fractured Rome of tragedy,

About the author

John Michael Archer is Professor of English at New York University, USA.

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