Putting
Shakespeare in context, examining the relevance of his work to the
controversies of his day, and developing conceptions of history that
connect Shakespeare's time and our own, offer to rescue Shakespeare
from an abstract "greatness" and make his works meaningful to students
and their lives in today's world.
A
Cultural Studies Approach to Shakespeare
Additional Cultural Studies / Shakespeare Resources
A
Cultural Studies Approach to Shakespeare |TOP|
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Themes
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Youth violence, love across ethnic divisions, sexuality and
censorship, parent/child relations, teenage suicide.
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West Side
Story,
Habibi
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Code of manhood, stereotypes of women, witchcraft and women,
relation of humans and environment, authority/rebellion.
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Lord of the Flies,
Heart of Darkness,
Things Fall Apart
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Role of women, family power dynamics, teenage suicide, social
class
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Catcher in the Rye
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Role of women, male/female relationships, Renaissance education.
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Jane Anger's Protection for Women
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Colonialism, racism, gender relations.
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Robinson
Crusoe, The Coral Island, Heart of Darkness,
Things Fall Apart
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Racism, spousal abuse, gender relations, social class issues.
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Aprha Behn's Oroonoko
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Anti-semitism, gender relations, social class issues.
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Chaucer's Prioress's Tale
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Social class issues, gender roles and relations.
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Masters and servants, patriarchy, religion.
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Jane Smiley's
1000 Acres
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Resources
for a Cultural Studies Approach to Shakespeare
|TOP|
Half-Humankind Texts and Contexts in the Controversy about Women, 1540-1640
by Katherine McManus is a collection of street pamphlets circulated
during Shakespeare's day that intensely debate the roles and capacities
of women. Placed next to any one of Shakespeare's plays these works
would bring new life to the discussion.
Shakespeare and the Nature of Women by Juliet Dusinberre explores
the Protestant attitude toward women and Puritan feminist sympathies
in the plays.
Masters and Servants in English Renaissance Drama and Culture: Authority
and Obedience by Mark Burnett is a clear and careful study of Renaissance
servitude that opens up new issues and perspectives for examening the
relationships of masters and servants in many of Shakespeare's plays.
Masterless
Men: The Vagrancy Problem in England 1560-1640 by A.L. Beier is
a fascinating look at the lives of vagrants, public attitudes toward
the poor, and social policies during the time of Shakespeare. Chapters
or sections read along with Lear or the Henry IV plays
would lead to interesting discussion and fresh insights.
The Moor in
English Renaissance Drama by Jack D'Amico draws on the historical
relations of England, Morocco, and the Islamic world and provides
a reference point for exploring The Tempest and The Merchant
of Venice as well as Othello and ongoing attitudes toward
Islamic peoples.
Dollimore and
Sinfield's Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism
is an important collection of New Historicist essays on Shakespeare.
It includes the famous (and difficult) essay by Greenblatt "Invisible
Bullets" that connects Shakespeare's history plays with colonialism
in the New World, and a fine essay on Irish Colonialism and The
Tempest, spying in Measure for Measure, feminist criticism,
homoeroticism, prostitution, etc.
Surveillance,
Militarism, and Drama in the Elizabethian Era by Curt Breight
is somewhat difficult but strips away the myth of a benign Shakespearean
England and opens up possibilities for rethinking Shakespeare's treatment
of kinship and power.
Shakespeare
and the Jews by James Shapiro and Anti-Semitic Stereotypes
Without Jews: Images of the Jew in England 1290-1700 by Bernard
Glassman are both useful books to explore anti-Semitism in Shakespeare's
day and are rich resources for reading the Merchant of Venice. (The
latter book also addresses Chaucer's "Prioress' Tale.")
Stephen Greenblatt's
Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture has wonderful
chapters on The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, and King
Lear. His Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social
Energy in Renaissance England is somewhat more difficult but offers
innovative ways of thinking about the history plays.
Literature
and Lives: A Response-based, Cultural Studies Approach to Teaching
English by Allen Carey-Webb (NCTE 2001) addresses Shakespeare
plays in the contexts of homelessness, gender relations, youth violence,
colonialism, and anti-semitism.
