This valuable work is an important contribution to literary criticism, theatre studies and social history and has particular importance for scholars interested in the dramatic literature of Elizabethan England.
His plays, Michael Bristol asserts, help to constitute a primary affirmative theme of much American culture criticism, specifically the celebration of individuality and the values of expressive autonomy.
Bristol debates Shakespeare's cultural success and widespread notoriety, his achievement of contemporary celebrity and argues that Shakespeare's plays represent the pathos of our civilization with extraordinary force and clarity.
The script was based on the original translation by Richard Herbert Howe. During rehearsals this basic text was extensively modified" (p.10).
This carefully updated third edition draws extensively on new scholarship that has emerged since the previous edition.