Description
Book SynopsisSoon after James Stuart became King of England in 1603, William Shakespeare became the royal playwright. In this book the author looks at the court performances of some of Shakespeare's most famous plays, examining them in their settings at the royal palaces of Whitehall and Hampton Court.
Table of ContentsIntroduction - Shakespeare at the Stuart Court; Art and Theatre in the Service of the Leviathan State; Blood Revenge in Elsinore and in Holyrood - "Hamlet", Hampton Court, Christmas 1603; The King's Prerogative and the Law - "Measure for Measure", Whitehall, December 26th 1604; The Politics of Madness and Demonism - "Macbeth", Hampton Court, August 7th 1606; The True King - Lear, Whitehall, Christmas 1606; Sex and Favour in the Court - "Antony and Cleopatra", Whitehall, Christmas 1607; Military and the Court Aristocracies - Coriolanus, Whitehall, Christmas 1608; The King and the Poet - "The Tempest", Whitehall, Winter 1613; Shakespeare's Sonnets and Patronage Art; What the King Saw, What the Poet Wrote. Appendices: Theatrical Calendar of the King's Men, 1603-14; The Great Hall at Christ Church, Oxford, August 1605.
