Acknowledgements
A Note on Texts
Introduction
1 Macbeth: Performing a Caesarean Section on the Mother Country
2 Antony and Cleopatra: The Competition for Representing the
Queen
3 Coriolanus: Disarming the Memory of Elizabethan England
4 Cymbeline: The Politics of Remembering the Besieged Heroine
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
The first book-length study to illuminate the relationship between the plays of Shakespeare and the phenomenon of nostalgia for Elizabeth I in the first decade of the reign of James I.
Yuichi Tsukada is Associate Professor of English at Doshisha University, Japan. He received his BA and MA from the University of Tokyo and his PhD from King’s College London. His journal articles on Shakespeare have won him fellowships and awards, including the Young Scholar Award of Special Merit from the English Literary Society of Japan.
Yuichi Tsukada’s insightful Shakespeare and the Politics of
Nostalgia reexamines the dead queen’s reputation during the early
years of the reign of her successor. He does not seek, however,
merely to read Shakespeare’s characters as versions of Elizabeth,
but to examine the plays’ participation in debates about cultural
memory and representation.
*SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900*
Through this engaging and methodical study, Yuichi Tsukada
illustrates just how nebulous and complex the evocations of
Elizabeth I could be in Jacobean drama. Although Shakespeare is the
primary focus, the readings of other contemporary texts are also
compelling and vividly, if briefly, drawn, and it is clear by the
end of the study that the ghost of Elizabeth I would, contrary to
the authors seeking to silence her, continue to haunt her successor
and her country.
*Theatre Journal*
Though Tsukada's book approaches the topic of Jacobean politics
through an analysis of Shakespeare's work, it would be a good read
for anyone interested in early modern politics and drama.
*Renaissance Quarterly*
Scholars of Shakespearean literature will find this study
illuminating, particularly in its readings of plays that have
already been subject to centuries of deep analysis. But students of
Jacobean politics also ought not overlook this work nor its
prodigious source base. Tsukada crafts a compelling argument with
implications for our understanding of how Shakespeare fit into the
political conversations of his era.
*Anglican and Episcopal History*
Tsukada demonstrates the vigor of debate in these years [1606 to
1610] over Elizabeth: some authors looked back with nostalgia on
her warlike female stance, whereas others mocked her courtly poses
and preferred the pacific posture assumed by her successor. Some of
Tsukada’s readings have been offered before, as the fine full notes
duly indicate; others will be new even to specialists. Shakespeare
is seen as reflecting views of the age, unlike other writers cited,
all of whom seem to come down on one side or the other of the
debate. This volume will prove useful to those eager to ponder the
merits and limits of such thoroughgoing political interpretation.
Summing Up: Recommended.
*Choice*
This is an exciting re-evaluation of Shakespeare’s engagement with
the icon of Elizabeth I in his Jacobean plays. It examines the
tropes of Elizabeth as a warlike queen, an imperilled princess and
a bringer of peace as they were contested within Jacobean politics
and culture. The book reveals a much more subtle and ambivalent
response to Elizabeth by Jacobean Shakespeare than has previously
been acknowledged.
*Jane Kingsley-Smith, University of Roehampton, London, UK*
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