Bloomsbury Home
- Home
- ACADEMIC
- Drama & Performance Studies
- Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
- Shakespeare and Economic Theory
You must sign in to add this item to your wishlist. Please sign in or create an account
Description
Over the last 20 years, the concept of 'economic' activity has come to seem inseparable from psychological, semiotic and ideological experiences. In fact, the notion of the 'economy' as a discrete area of life seems increasingly implausible. This returns us to the situation of Shakespeare's England, where the financial had yet to be differentiated from other forms of representation. This book shows how concepts and concerns that were until recently considered purely economic affected the entire range of sixteenth and seventeenth century life.
Using the work of such critics as Jean-Christophe Agnew, Douglas Bruster, Hugh Grady and many others, Shakespeare and Economic Theory traces economic literary criticism to its cultural and historical roots, and discusses its main practitioners. Providing new readings of Timon of Athens, King Lear, The Winter's Tale, The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and The Tempest, David Hawkes shows how it can reveal previously unappreciated qualities of Shakespeare's work.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Preface
PART ONE Economics in History and Criticism
1 'Will into appetite': Economics and Chrematistics
2 'The future comes apace': The Birth of Restricted Economy
3 The Last of the Schoolmen: The Marxist Tradition
4 'The hatch and brood of time': Beyond the Economy
5 Money as Metaphor: The New Economic Criticism
PART TWO Economics in Shakespeare
6 'Going to the market-place': The Commons and the Commodity
7 'The soul of trade': Worth and Value
8 'Knaves of common hire': Wage Labour, Slavery and Reification
9 'Unkind abuse': The Legalization of Usury
10 'Lear's shadow': Identity, Property and Possession
Conclusion: Magic and Alienation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Product details
Published | 24 Sep 2015 |
---|---|
Format | Ebook (PDF) |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 240 |
ISBN | 9781472577009 |
Imprint | The Arden Shakespeare India |
Series | Shakespeare and Theory |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt. Ltd |
About the contributors
Reviews
-
In a text rich with illustrations drawn from both the plays and Sonnets, Hawkes shows not only how Shakespeare was fully aware of the economic circumstances in which his work was being received but also how this awareness informed his writing. ... [A] wide-ranging and readable account.
Times Literary Supplement
-
The Arden Shakespeare has provided a benchmark for textual interpretation on the stage and academically for over a century.
Morning Star
-
David Hawkes's Shakespeare and Economic Theory is the most densely ambitious of the three, though its 88-page overview of economic theory (including classical economic terminology and Marxism, and summarizing the history of Marxist and anti-Marxist economic theory in Shakespeare studies) is itself a minor miracle of clarity and concision.
Curtis Perry, Studies in English Literature

ONLINE RESOURCES
Bloomsbury Collections
This book is available on Bloomsbury Collections where your library has access.