Shakespeare's Golden Ages: Resisting Nostalgia in Elizabethan Drama

This book explores how Shakespeare uses nostalgia as a future-focused political rhetoric in his Elizabethan history plays, highlighting its persuasive power and potential for political change. It offers new interpretations of Shakespeare's contemporaries and attends to the extra-dramatic valences of nostalgic rhetoric in Elizabethan England.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 14 February 2024
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

This book offers a fresh perspective on Shakespeare's Elizabethan history plays by examining nostalgia as a forward-looking political rhetoric rather than simply a nostalgic practice or Stuart nostalgia for Elizabeth. By doing so, it suggests new avenues for studying nostalgia. Through case studies such as Richard II and Julius Caesar, Shakespeare demonstrates how nostalgia can be used as a powerful tool for political change, while also acknowledging the limitations of trying to reclaim the past and the idealized nature of that past.

In his dramaturgy, nostalgia serves as a persuasive call for short-lived political transformation. The book provides fresh interpretations of Shakespeare's contemporaries to illustrate how his use of nostalgia relies on, innovates from, and influences his fellow playwrights. By reading literary, religious, and political texts alongside Shakespeare's histories, the book also attends to the extra-dramatic valences of nostalgic rhetoric in Elizabethan England.

This book offers a valuable contribution to our understanding of Shakespeare's plays and their historical context, and it will be of interest to scholars and students of literature, history, and politics alike.

Weight: 356g
Dimension: 156 x 234 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474493550