Description
Book SynopsisIn this bold, original study Hedrick proposes an early modern entertainment value' revolution, to which Shakespeare contributed and in which he played a competitive role. As London's nascent capitalist industry developed and the variety of entertainments proliferated, theatre contributes to the birth of entertainment value and a commercial trajectory toward what Marxist critic Adorno theorizes as fun,' seen contemporaneously in LasVegasization and the election of Donald Trump to U.S. Presidency. In this innovative approach to Shakespeare's plays through their compulsory, competitive relation to other choices from London's entertainment industry, such as sex work and gaming, Hedrick recovers a coherent internal dynamic of theatre's pleasure enclosure' accompanying the revolutionary logic of capital's new cultural and economic extremes. Applying these relations to original, insightful readings of A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale, and The Taming of the Shrew, Hedrick dr
