Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds: National and Transnational Identities in the Elizabethan Age

Carole Levin; John Watkins

Published by Cornell University Press 2012

Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds

National and Transnational Identities in the Elizabethan Age

Carole Levin and John Watkins

https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801458958

Overview
Contents

About this book

In Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds, Carole Levin and John Watkins focus on the relationship between the London-based professional theater world of Shakespeare and an unprecedented European experience of geographic, social, and intellectual mobility.

Author / Editor information

Carole Levin is Willa Cather Professor of History at the University of Nebraska. She is the author of several books, including Dreaming the English Renaissance: Politics and Desire in Court and Culture. John Watkins is Professor of English, Italian Studies, and Medieval Studies at the University of Minnesota. He is the author most recently of Representing Elizabeth in Stuart England: Literature, History, Sovereignty.

Reviews

Phyllis Rackin, University of Pennsylvania:

The blurring of the boundaries between literary and historical studies is the most widespread trend in current Renaissance scholarship. In Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds, Carole Levin and John Watkins draw upon both disciplines to illuminate nation-building, the cultural and economic impact of foreign worlds, and the roles of foreign characters in Elizabethan drama.

Rebecca Lemon, University of Southern California, author of Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion in Shakespeare's England:

In Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds, Carole Levin and John Watkins move beyond current debates about the status of early modern studies vis-à-vis historicism to offer an original and much-needed book that truly brings together the fields of literature and history. Most notably, the authors significantly expand the discussion of early modern nationalism and, in doing so, offer thoughtful, incisive, and self-aware criticism of a set of Shakespearean texts.

This interdisciplinary book, which comprises pairs of essays on 1 Henry VI, The Merchant of Venice, and The Taming of the Shrew, exemplifies new historicism at its best.... The essays are beautifully written, cogently argued, and meticulously researched. Recommended.

Marguerite Waller:

The sense of discovery and surprise, alive in Levin and Watkins's presentation, gives the reader the old-fashioned pleasure of a detective story and, more important, makes tangible the historical specificities and stakes involved in the social constructions of gender and race that haunt immigration policies and globalization strategies in the EU and the US. In doing so, Shakespeare's Foreign Worlds powerfully de-essentializes those constructions.... This book stands at the beginning of a sea change in the enactment of interdisciplinarity.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I: Gender, Punishment, and Peace-Making in 1 Henry VI
1. “Murder not then the fruit within my womb” Shakespeare’s Joan, Foxe’s Guernsey Martyr, and Women Pleading Pregnancy in English History and Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
2. Shakespeare’s 1 Henry VI and the Tragedy of Renaissance Diplomacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
Part II: Aliens in Our Midst: Jews, Italians, and Wary Englishmen in The Merchant of Venice
3. Converting the Daughter Gender, Power, and Jewish Identity in the English Renaissance Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
4. Shakespeare and the Decline of the Venetian Republic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
Part III: Dangerous Reading in The Taming of the Shrew
5. Many Different Kates Taming Shrews and Queens Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
6. Shakespeare and the Women Writers of the Veneto Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Afterword Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 232
Keywords: henry vi; taming of the shrew; merhcant of venice; literary studies; english minorities; european mercantile system; women and shakespeare

eBook

Published: January 15, 2011
ISBN: 9780801458958