Shakespeare's monarchies

Constance Jordan looks at how Shakespeare, through his romances, contributed to the cultural debates over the nature of monarchy in Jacobean England. Stressing the differences between absolutist and constitutionalist principles of rule, Jordan reveals Shakespeare's investment in the idea that a head of state should be responsive to law, and not be governed by his unbridled will. Conflicts within royal courts which occur in the romances show wives, daughters, and servants resisting tyrannical husbands, fathers, masters, and monarchs by relying on the authority of conscience. Shakespeare's Monarchies recognizes the romances as politically inflected texts and confirms Shakespeare's involvement in the public discourse of the period.

First sentence: SOUTHWARK, 1611. PLAYGOERS PATRONIZING THE GLOBE HAD A CHANCE to see two new plays by William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

Year

1997

Language

English

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Editions

1

Pages

240

ISBN

9780801486296

Data source: Wikidata