Table of Contents

Note on the Text ix

Acknowledgments xi

Part I The Life 1

1 Who was William Shakespeare? 3

2 Writing 23

3 Religion 47

4 Status 61

5 Theatre 79

Part II The Plays 97

6 Comedies: Shakespeare’s Social Life 99

The Comedy of Errors 99

The Taming of the Shrew 108

Love’s Labour’s Lost 119

A Midsummer Night’s Dream 125

The Merchant of Venice 132

Much Ado About Nothing 138

As You Like It 146

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will 153

Measure for Measure 159

7 English and Roman Histories: Shakespeare’s Politics 177

Richard II 177

1 Henry IV 182

Henry V 192

Richard III 198

Julius Caesar 204

Coriolanus 210

8 Tragedies: Shakespeare in Love and Loss 223

Romeo and Juliet 223

Hamlet 232

Othello 241

King Lear 252

Macbeth 260

Antony and Cleopatra 266

9 Romances: Shakespeare and Theatrical Magic 277

The Winter’s Tale 277

The Tempest 284

Index 295

About the Author

Dympna Callaghan is William L. Safire Professor of ModernLetters at Syracuse University and President of the ShakespeareAssociation of America, 2012 13. She is the editor of theArden Shakespeare Language and Writing Series and coeditor, withMichael Dobson, of the Palgrave Shakespeare Studies series. Herpublications include Shakespeare Without Women (2000),The Taming of the Shrew: A Norton Critical Edition (2009),Shakespeare s Sonnets (2007), The Impact ofFeminism in English Renaissance Culture (2006), and Romeoand Juliet: Texts and Contexts (2003).

Reviews

[A] highly readable introduction to the Life and Works,in the best tradition of that ancient and worthy genre. It isfurthermore a piece of New Historical criticism at its sober best With such impressive scholarly credentials, [Callaghan] ismore than well equipped to provide original and perceptiveintroductions to Shakespeare s life and works. But this is nomere mechanical life-and-works primer, like the dozens alreadyavailable on the market and on college bookshop shelves This [is a] substantial work of criticism, presented as anintroduction to Shakespeare the man and his work, but amounting toconsiderably more than mere introduction. Dympna Callaghan meetsadmirably the challenge she set herself in the bold question of thetitle: who was William Shakespeare? For she shows us very wellindeed who he was and is andwhy. (Cercles, 1 June 2014) Featured in Times Literary Supplement - 25 October 2013 "Dympna Callaghan's lucid and well-structured textbook allowsstudents to see the plays in their context." (Times LiterarySupplement, 25 October 2013) "The book should interest readers who are curious aboutShakespeare's life and the social and political history of England.Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates throughfaculty; general readers." (Choice, 1 August 2013)