Essaying Shakespeare

For more than twenty-five years, Karen Newman has brought her critical acumen to bear on early modern studies.

In this collection of her essays on Shakespeare—some acknowledged classics and others never before published—Newman shows how changing theoretical trends have shaped Shakespeare studies, from new historicism and gender studies to critical race studies and globalization. Central to Newman’s work is social exchange, or the circulation of people and objects.

At least two of these essays have had a powerful and lasting impact on Shakespeare studies: “Renaissance Family Politics and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew” and “‘And wash the Ethiop White’: Femininity and the Monstrous in Othello.” Three essays appear in print for the first time: an examination of clothing of the poor and the portrayal of the king as a beggar in Richard II; a stinging review of Harold Bloom’s book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human; and a rethinking of claims about the globalization of culture and cultural translation. Essaying Shakespeare chronicles Newman’s own critical development to provide a significant map of critical work on Shakespeare.