Description
Book SynopsisRepresentationalism and its subject mark the beginning of political modernity; Shakespeare's tragedies greet political representationalism with skepticism, bleakness, and despair.
Trade ReviewArnold's dense book explores the fertile ground left mostly unturned by new historicist approaches of early modern politics... Brilliant and well-documented analysis of Shakespeare's 'representational plays'. -- Marie-Dominique Garnier Cercles 2007 A compelling historical refinement... Recommended. Choice 2007 Remarkably scholarly... This seminal redrawing of power and politics in late Tudor and early Stuart England takes its authority from the tight analogies it makes between political events and governmental practice in Shakespeare's time and its detailed examination of key scenes in a half-dozen of his plays. In confronting our common assumptions of the period, it forces us to rethink our own historical beliefs. -- Arthur F. Kinney Renaissance Quarterly 2007 Intelligent and important book... A bracing riposte to revisionist historians. -- Anne McLaren English Historical Review 2008 A superb look at Shakespearean politics. Studies in English Literature 2008 Promises a fresh and original approach. -- Richard McCoy Comparative Drama 2008 Provides some needed and very stimulating ideas and evidence with which to develop scholarly analysis of the ways in which contemporaries thought about parliamentary representation, and about the problems involved in making such a system both meaningful and practicable. -- Jason Peacey H-Net Reviews 2008 A serious book about an important subject and a work that anyone interested in Shakespeare's political thought should read carefully... I admire The Third Citizen. Clio 2008 Arnold quite convincingly documents his major claim. -- Maurice Hunt English Studies 2008
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Note on References and Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I: Parliament in Shakespeare's England
1. "An epitome of the whole realme": Absorption and Representation in the Elizabethan and Jacobean House of Commons
2. Cade's Mouth: Swallowing Parliament in the First Tetralogy
Part II: Political Representation in Shakespeare's Rome
3. "Their tribune and their trust": Political Representation, Property, and Rape in Titus Andronicus and The Rape of Lucrece
4. "Caesar is turn'd to hear": Theater, Popular Dictatorship, and the Conspiracy of Republicanism in Julius Caesar
5. "Worshipful mutineers": From Demos to Electorate in Coriolanus
Epilogue: Losing Power, Losing Oneself: The Third Citizen and Tragedy
Notes
Works Cited
Index
