Shakespeare and the Question of Culture

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

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2. Shakespeare and Culture

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Shakespeare and the Question of Culture

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 3-28

   3. Deep Focus

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 29-62

3. Early Modern Literary Culture

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 63-63

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   2. The Structural Transformation of Print in Late Elizabethan England

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 65-93

   3. The Dramatic Life of Objects in the Early Modern Theater

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 95-118

   4. Female-Female Eroticism and the Early Modern Stage

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 119-144

4. Critical Culture

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 145-145

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   2. Shakespeare and the End of History

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 147-166

   3. Shakespeare and the Composite Text

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 167-190

   4. The New Materialism in Early Modern Studies

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 191-205

   5. Conclusion

      • Douglas Bruster

      Pages 207-210

5. Back Matter

   Pages 211-279

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The last two decades have witnessed a profound change in the way we receive the literary texts of early modern England. One could call this a move from 'text' to 'culture'. Put briefly, earlier critics tended to focus on literary texts, strictly conceived: plays, poems, prose fictions, essays. Since the mid-1980s, however, it has been just as likely for critics to speak of the 'culture' of early modern England, even when they do so in conjunction with analysis of literary texts. This 'cultural turn' has clearly enriched the way in which we read the texts of early modern England, but the interdisciplinary practices involved have frequently led critics to make claims about materials - and about the 'culture' these materials appear to embody - that exceed those materials' representativeness. Shakespeare and the Question of Culture addresses the central issue of 'culture' in early modern studies through both literary history and disciplinary critique. Douglas Bruster argues that the 'culture' literary critiques investigate through the works of Shakespeare and other writers is largely a literary culture, and he examines what this necessary limitation of the scope of 'cultural studies' means for the discipline of early modern studies.

• critique
• Cultural Studies
• Cultural Turn
• culture
• drama
• England
• English literature
• fiction
• poem
• prose
• William Shakespeare
• British and Irish Literature

'...a strikingly intelligent, comprehensive and occasionally contentious analysis of the current state of play in early modern literary studies, its history, and the paths open to critics in the future.' - Times Literary Supplement

DOUGLAS BRUSTER teaches at The University of Texas at Austin. He is author of Drama and the Market in the Age of Shakespeare, Quoting Shakespeare, and textual editor of The Changeling for The Collected Works of Thomas Middleton.

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